Food is not expensive

[ragandbonewoman]

That is it really. I suppose I’m curious as to whether people agree or disagree with me. This follows a conversation I’ve just had with a friend where we disagreed on this point, but it’s something I’ve really noticed as things (life, not just food) have become more expensive. Lots and lots of people complaining that food is “so expensive” We are actually in the fortunate position of being able to spend less than the majority of the rest of the world (relative to our income) to follow a healthy diet.

Yes food has gone up. But (and I admit this is an anecdotal observation) food waste is prolific. I think we need to change our outlook. We should be prepared to pay more, especially for meat, to ensure that suppliers, farmers, animal welfare, are all getting a fair deal. I’ve always found it ridiculous that you can buy a whole chicken for £5! How?! And then people readily admit they throw half of it away.

Is this unreasonable? Food is important. People on the absolute breadline might have little choice, but for those that can take a little slack from elsewhere, they should. And stop complaining that you can’t get a tin of beans for 9p anymore! Stop throwing food in the bin because you feel like eating something else. Or AIBU?

Do you have children?

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Yes I do

YABU

How many people are you shopping for? Are you have your daily 8 veg and fruit, 3 portions of calcium and weekly 30 different whole foods, fish twice a week and one of which is oily?

Food can be cheap but a good diet isn’t cheap. Especially if you have my children’s tastes!

I can still afford to eat ok and feed my family but I have far far less disposable income today then I did a few years ago because so much of my money now goes on food. It's our biggest expense

I’m in the same position as you.

How can you be so glib and offensive.

There is a cost of living crisis. People are out here using food banks and barely getting by, panicking about feeding the kids over school holidays, and the government are going on about rolling out free breakfast clubs nationwide because it is expensive to feed families.

My cousin says exactly the same.
She earns 6 figures, shops at Waitrose, has 2-3 holidays per year.

Meanwhile I’ve noticed that my usual family shop (creature of habit, have had more or less the same shopping list for over ten years) is more than £40 more expensive than it was not too long ago.

Other countries have relatively higher food bills, but have lower energy bills and fuel is much cheaper.

It’s also like stupid people saying “oh there’s no cost of living crisis, restaurants are all full” without acknowledging how many restaurants and pubs have closed down in the last few years.

Some people live in cloud cuckoo land. Lucky them.

Yes food is cheap in the UK, however as someone who once had a weekly food budget of £12, even cheap things are very expensive for those on a low income.

And yes, if you are feeding anything towards a decent, palatable diet and are not just subsisting on white bread, it's really hard to keep up.

Food prices have been going up absolutely loads since covid and were rising before then. It's constantly reported in the news about how food prices are increasing faster than inflation, which means things are getting more expensive quicker than people are earning more, and if you are relying on benefits with even worse inflation levels, you are really fucked.

My shopping bill is becoming as large as my (already high) rent!

two adults, three teens. I didn’t know it’s gone up
to 8, but I’ve always tried to teach five portions of fruit or veg for each of us

Compared to many countries food here is very cheap. A look at a couple of american budget cooking youtubers will show how much they have to spend. And if you go abroad to europe check out the supermarket prices there as well.

But compared to what we are used to it has gone up alot.

Depends what you want to eat, how much skill you have with ingredients, and how much time you have to cook.

We eat really well on very little money. I was a single parent on benefits when my oldest DC were born and they were weaned onto basic budget food - they ate porridge oats for breakfast most mornings with seasonal or frozen fruit, with warm milk in winter and plain yoghurt in summer. Cheap as anything and filled them up til lunchtime.

Lunches would be cheese or tuna or smoked mackerel or an egg with wholemeal bread and some tomatoes/cucumber/carrot sticks, or a home made soup (I used to batch make soup and cake on a Sunday), or beans/egg on toast.

Dinner would be things like jacket potatoes, dahl and rice, pasta bakes, stews.

I always cooked an extra family sized portion of things that would freeze and kept them for a skint week.

It isn't an expensive way to eat! But it did require me to have some time, and a freezer, and large pans, and basic cookery skills. Not everyone has any or all of those.

Some food is fairly cheap, some is very expensive

We eat at lot of vegetarian meals (I'm vegetarian ) and I can make a meal with lentils/beans/pulses/in season veg pretty cheaply. Likewise porridge, rice, pasta are all cheapish options

However, there is no getting away from the fact that certain food is expensive, and has risen a lot in the past year or so.

I especially think "snack type" food for kids is expensive (little chocolate bars for school lunches and stuff like that) and obviously decent welfare meat is super expensive but like op said, I think its right that it is

Shopping is now our biggest monthly outgoing after the mortgage, didn't used to be

I agree - as a proportion of household spending the amount going on food is much, much lower than it was in the past. We are happy to pay high prices for takeaway food & drink & eating out put complain hugely about supermarket prices - which are lower than most Western European countries.

I can afford to eat well. Really well. And I think food is extortionate.

PS we have more money now and eat fancier stuff when we feel like it, but still have cheap meals regularly! Every week there's a soup night and a jacket potato night, I still make lunchbox cake on a Sunday (usually a low sugar fruit upside down cake).

As pp says you CAN eat cheaply but it will be repetitive, fairly bland and probably not nutritionally balanced long term - for the average time poor home cook.

Huge bags of pasta and rice and cheap arsed fatty mince, the cheapest bread, the cheapest beans ect ect

It hasn’t from the goverment. 5 has always been advertised by the goverment even though they alway knew you needed more to meet a basic level of nutrition but the same report also said a large number of people couldn’t afford 5 a day.

How much is your food shopping per week and what do you eat in a typical week?

I will say though that I do acknowledge in my case that my bill has been going up because my mental load has gone up a lot in the last couple of years and so I do spend more on things for the kids.

But it really helps me to know my kids each a lot of fresh fruit and dairy, I would really struggle with balancing health and convenience if I couldn't buy lots of the fruit cheese and yoghurt they like, but it is getting honestly so expensive.

I don’t earn 6 figures, nor shop at Waitrose. I already said I know people on the breadline have no choice. Given that around 4% of the country access food banks, I think there are many of us who are pretty lucky that we can get as much as we can for the money it costs

I think the problem is maybe not so much the food prices but the fact that wages have been stagnant for a long time and the cost of housing is so high in this country too.

How much is your food shop OP?

I find it expensive and I'm trying to avoid UPFs but also have restricted time available to cook?

I think it can be cheap when one parent not working and has time. I think I'd be much more crunchy mum if I wasn't working for example.

But I'm genuinely up for advice if you dot find it expensive as I truly do.