Lately the price of food has been getting me down. It seems that every time that I go to the grocery store, the bill is higher. Meanwhile, we are eating much less meat than we used to, rarely buy canned beans, make our own bread and soy milk... What is going on?
The higher price of food is all over the news. Milk is higher, which has made all milk products more expensive. The price of wheat is higher, which has made pizza places and bakeries raise their prices. I have not really noticed a higher price on flour, but the high price of milk really hurts. I have 3 young children, and the youngest can really put away some milk. We decided to switch to organic milk, and the price of organic milk (not the happy stuff in glass bottles, mind you, but just regular factory organic milk) is from 4.99 to 5.49 a gallon, depending on where I buy it. That's at LEAST 40 dollars a month in milk. Then there's cheese. About $5 a pound, and lots more if I buy organic.
This week's Newsweek has an article about people changing back from organic because of the rising cost of food. There are certain things that I am consistent about with organic -- I like the organic milk, but can't bring myself to pay for the cheese. I buy organic yogurt (2.99 for a big container) but not ice cream (don't buy much of that because I would just eat it all). I can't afford organic green peppers, so I usually just leave them out. I'm waiting for them to grow in my garden. I only buy grass-fed beef, so I buy really small quantities. Depending on what I'm making, sometimes I mix it 1/2 and 1/2 with veggie crumbles.
I'd like to buy more organic produce, but I just can't afford it. The grocery bill keeps going up... not just because of higher prices, but because my children eat more as they grow. So I pick and choose. I experimented with CSA, but it just wasn't worth it for me. It cost $30 a week for vegetables that for the most part were not things that my family would normally eat, and that my kids generally didn't touch. The last week I had to toss a few things because they rotted before we could eat them. We NEVER throw away food, so that was the breaking point for me.
My kids eat lots of fruit, so I spend a good deal of money on that. Sometimes organic -- usually not. Who am I kidding? I can't spend $5 on a pound of strawberries that will be gone in 5 minutes. At the same time, I know that conventional berries are sprayed with a lot of pesticides, so I try to emphasize fruits with peels and/or fruits that are not on the "dirty dozen" list. So we eat lots of bananas, oranges, grapefruits, organic apples and mangoes. My kids also LOVE canned peaches and pineapple, which are quite affordable, but lately I've been wondering if I'm slowly poisoning them with the plastic can lining.
What about you? Have you noticed higher prices? Have they changed the decisions that you make at the grocery store?
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2 comments:
I had a big argument with a friend about Walmart getting into the organic business. Although I don't shop at Walmart, I felt that that was a good thing because it would bring organic food to people who wouldn't normally be able to afford it. He thought it would kind of make organic food worse. Although I see his point, the stuff you talk about shows why I think we need to make organic food more widely avail.
I'm really lucky in CA. Because so much food is grown here, it tends to be fairly cheap. For example, 3 flats of organic strawberries for $5.
Arduous -- you are so lucky. I never even IMAGINED that organic strawberries could cost so little.
I had a long talk with some friends about CSA the other day, and we had all basically decided that it wasn't really worth it -- for us it's better to buy directly at the farmer's market if local is important, or to buy organic at the store. And these are friends who all make more money than my family does. When it comes down to it, we can try to make the best green decisions, but economics DOES play an important part. If the "green" choice is just not affordable for most people, then it does not have as big an impact as something maybe a little less green that many more people can afford.
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