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?

In the US they say 10, in Japan they've recommended at least 17 portions a day (13 veg, 4 fruit) for 20 years.

and 80g of each? so nearly 1400g in Japan? You would need to shop daily....

Nah. Don't think so.

Of course you don't! 😆

Can you provide a menu for a week?

I mean, we have it a lot better than eg the US when it comes to quality and price of fresh veg and meat BUT are we supposed to ignore the fact that food prices have gone up in the last few years?

And are we supposed to pretend that buying a ready meal or a shit jar of Dolmio and some cheap mince costs the same as making a proper ragu from scratch? Because it doesn't.

Eating well isn't cheap, IMO.

I could fill the freezer in Iceland and feed my family absolute shit for a lot less than it costs to make good, healthy meals from scratch.

It's normal for people to shop daily in many countries.

France & Italy, for example.

Popping to a store or market for fresh meat/fish and veggies is the norm for many.

Bless. Makes me think of a disagreement l had with a celebrity chef many years ago; she said everyone could afford to eat free range meat all the time. People just need to get better at budgeting in her opinion. She was so tone deaf it was embarrassing

Try telling that to DH and DS.

I spend around £130 pw for 2 adults (Ocado) that doesn’t include our household items such as cleaning stuff/bin bags/foil etc. That’s for breakfast, work lunches and teas. I don’t budget but I do think that’s quite expensive. I can imagine it getting ridiculously expensive if you have a couple of kids that need lunchbox food, more snacks, milk etc.

I cook from scratch so I can keep my costs down and shop at Lidl. But I suppose if I was buying ready meals everyday from Waitrose I would say it is expensive

@JustSawJohnny I'm half French, they shop daily the same way I shop daily here...

yanbu, compared to most countries including those much poorer than us, the U.K. has cheap food and that includes nutritious food. The cost to feed a family healthy nutritious family is not expensive for most people compared to income compared to most countries. I can feed 4 for around £80 a week, 3 meet, one veggie, all adults but I cook completely from scratch including making spice pastes, and eat a lot of Asian food which tends to be cheaper. We do not buy any of the processed foods I observe in trolleys, like cakes, biscuits, crisps, canned drinks etc. the only nod to processed food is two loaves of bread a week as my homemade bread just isn’t right for sandwiches.

Popping to a store or market for fresh meat/fish and veggies is the norm for many.

Many areas have weekly markets not daily ones and the majority go to supermarkets now. They also aren't buying 5000g of fresh food & veg to feed a family of 4 17 portions a day which was what my post was actually about...

People pay twice as much for food now as we did in the 90s (and that's accounting for inflation) so yes, objectively, food is a lot more expensive.

Even over the last few years I've found my food shop has increased in cost by around 25%. We're vegetarians, keep hens for eggs and grow a lot of our own veg so we're not profligately flinging half eaten chickens to the wind, but it's still hugely expensive.

I meant “it would’t be fun” as an understatement; I.e. it would be difficult and awkward and time-consuming. All the women you talk about doing this serious house management stayed at home to run things. The income you talk about came from a single wage. I work full-time, I wasn’t taught how to run a house as part of my upbringing/ school curriculum (I’m lucky I have a mum who, whilst having a ft career, also loved cooking and taught me about household budgeting more from a financial, you’ll-earn-your-own-money pov), and my household certainly couldn’t run on a single wage. The goalposts have changed drastically since the 50s, you can’t really judge how someone runs their household based on what people were doing then. In the same way you probably couldnt compare a household from the 50s to one from the Victorian era.

And I don’t buy ready meals 🤣

I don't think food is particularly cheap but I do think producers should be properly paid for higher welfare animal products and to encourage better farming practices.

You shouldn't be able to buy 4 pints of milk for £1 and battery egg farms should be banned worldwide. You can buy seasonal veg boxes and "wonky" veg in supermarkets. You shouldn't be able to buy strawberries in January in the UK.

People have lost their way and are too divorced from where their food comes from. I hear of children aged 10 not knowing that ham comes from pigs! I do think that feeding our children properly and educating them about food and nutrition is one of the most important things you do as a parent and if you need to cut corners elsewhere to feed your children proper food you should. I definitely am not well off but decent, local, seasonal food is a priority.

@shirtyshirt

i would hate that - so time consuming

I agree about the food waste and the horror of the £5 chicken but overall YABU. In recent times certain staples for us went up massively and they've never come down eg milk, bread, eggs, tea, coffee, oats, olive oil. We hardly ever have meat and used to eat quite a lot of fish but that's also gone up too much.

Yeah I can’t believe battery farm is still legal tbh, it’s barbaric

@Cherrytree86 it's more a city thing eg I live 5 mins from the high street, pass shops on the school run, near work etc. I've grown up with convenience so don't know any different & buy fresh food or something probably every other day. Also a lot of people particularly younger don't have cars. I would hate to live somewhere where I had to drive everywhere & didn't have what I need on my doorstep. I think I would find that far more time consuming.

Am pretty sure that food as % of household in incomes is much much cheaper now than it was before 1970. I'm with OP. Food is cheap... just not as crazy cheap as it was 1990-2020

Food is expensive and I say that as someone who is privileged enough to not have to look at the price of it. I notice because not that many years ago there were some days I couldn’t afford to feed myself.

Food price is at an all time high. If I was still in the financial position I was in back then, I honestly don’t know what I would do.

A weekly online Tesco shop used to be about £70-80, now it's hard to get it below £120.

I used to make and eat soup, in COVID I did loads of cooking from scratch. But I'm tired, 90% of meals I have to make something different for DS as there's so much he can't/won't eat ages it's a constant struggle to get him to eat anything that isn't carbs with ham and cheese. Sometimes we all have to have separate meals if my IBS is bad.

I'm pleased today because I managed to get DS to eat three if his five a day, I haven't managed any myself though.

Food feels pretty expensive when your household income has gone down and the cost of everything has gone up.

Yeah food is cheap. If you want cheap food. I buy organic (I’m on min wage) just to try and replicate the food quality from when I was a child. So my food isn’t cheap but what’s the alternative? Iceland chicken? No thanks.

So I find food very expensive. Unless I want processed, pesticide heavy food.

My bill has gone up but a lot of that is because I have changed my mindset and buy higher quality food now than I used to.

I still wouldn't consider my food bill is unreasonable. I spend about £100/week for two adults and a preschooler. I could easily get it down if I tried. Dinner today's was pasta arrabiata which took 15 mins to make and cost about £4 in total for the pasta, cheese, onion and tomatoes but if I bought economy ingredients it'd be probably half that. I could eat more stuff like that if necessary, instead of buying organic chicken. Although the chicken does make us three meals.

I do think mindsets should change to eat more of the animal. My chicken comes with giblets which makes great stock but I never used to do that because supermarket chickens don't include them anymore.

I also think people should expect to eat more seasonally and less meat.

But cooking things that are delicious, don't take long and on a budget is definitely a skill. Unfortunately I think a lot of people don't really care to acquire it. I'm lucky that I love cooking and don't find it a chore.

in Japan they've recommended at least 17 portions a day (13 veg, 4 fruit) for 20 years.

Who is "they", in Japan?
This says recommended 5-6 portions/day
This is partly in Japanese and says 5-6 (link from here), same standard since 2000
This says 350g/day for vegetable intake (Japanese authors, peer-review literature). I guess you could turn that into 13/day if 20g each...

I also found the claim of "17 / day recommendation in Japan!" online but every single one of those claims looks like fairytales repeating each other, no official or authoritative type sources behind them.