The High Cost of Eating

High prices may change eating habits

By Kelvin Wade | | April 16, 2008 17:21

Eaters beware! The country is dealing with the worst food inflation in 17 years. Food costs rose dramatically last year and are rising higher this year. Anyone who has been grocery shopping recently has experienced the sticker shock of how much staples have risen.

There's a global food crisis caused by high oil prices, increased demand, freakish weather, ethanol and governments hording their exports for fear of running out of food for their own populations.

We fat Americans are used to eating 'a hound's bait and a dog's farewell' (One of my mother's expressions meaning 'to eat a heckuva lot') and paying precious little for it. The uptick in prices will definitely change how we eat.

An article in the Washington Post this past weekend, focused on what the restaurant industry is doing to weather the high cost of food. Some places are buying smaller plates, so smaller portions don't look so tiny. Some eateries are replacing their utensils with lighter ones, so the food will feel just as heavy. I'm not making this up.

Restaurants are rounding up prices. According to Chris Mentzer, a menu re-engineering specialist with US Foodservice, '. . . round up every price that ends with 95 cents to 99 cents. . . . It's just four cents and your customers won't notice, but that could easily mean $5,000 to $15,000 a year for the restaurant.'

Perhaps now is a good time to go on that diet. Most Americans can stand to lose a few pounds and it would help cut your food budget. I'm only half kidding.

But the problem is, unfortunately, the cheapest things to eat are the unhealthiest. Snack cakes are cheaper than fresh produce. You can buy a gallon and a half of soda for what a gallon of milk costs. And McDonalds and other fast-food restaurants still have their dollar menus.

But you may not be getting the same burger for that dollar anymore. I went to one fast-food place recently and purchased a cheeseburger. Now I'm somewhat of a cheeseburger connoisseur. Scores of these cheeseburgers have found their way at the other end of my esophagus.

Suddenly these cheeseburgers are being served on thin, Kate Moss buns when in the past; they were served on thick J-Lo buns. And the meat is suddenly the thickness of two pieces of bologna.

If you have teenagers then you know that a teen's appetite is only second to the great white shark. Milk, bread and cereal last as long as a two by four in a wood chipper with a houseful of kids. And for those on fixed incomes, ends aren't meeting like they used to.

Will this spike in food prices turn more of us into coupon clippers? It should. It makes no sense for those on a budget to throw away coupons for products that they use. It may seem like pennies at the time, but it adds up. Look at it this way, if you save four bucks, that's another gallon of gas you can buy.

That was a depressing way to put it, huh?

Despite the grocery pinch on top of everything else, Americans aren't nearly as bad off as Haitians who ousted their prime minister and rioted because of high food prices. What is a head cold to Americans is pneumonia to most of the rest of the world.

We'll gripe and cut back where we can. But most of us will still go to sleep with full stomachs. At least we have that. Peace.

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NOTES: The high prices just plain suck. You walk into a grocery store and your jaw hits the floor. You look at the produce and you wonder if we've clamped down on illegal immigration or something. Because wheat prices have jumped, bread prices have soared. I'm not paying four dollars for a loaf of bread. But what are our options?

I mean, when I was growing up, my mom was always frugal when it came to shopping. My parents had five boys and we were like piranha when it came to getting our eat on. Fortunately our dad was military so we had base privileges. Without the subsidized cheap food at the commissary, I don't know how we would've made it. Still, our mom loved buying generic or store brand foods. I was 17 before I knew French's made mustard. We used to drink ground coffee from a massive white can that said, "COFFEE" on the side of it. I kid you not. It tasted like burnt black ashes mixed with water.

Now store brand goods cost as much as the real brands did six months ago. Get acquainted with the store brands. Generic stuff used to suck balls years ago. You'd eat stuff that tasted nothing like what they were supposed to. Not so anymore. Plus, store brands have really branched out. You can find a store brand of almost anything. You gotta do what you gotta do.

We've got to cut back on that restaurant eating. When you eat out all the time, its just not special. Now, with money not going as far as it did, with so many prices going up all around us, we have to look at going out to eat as a special occasion. Too many families have become addicted to eating out because it's fast and there are no dishes to clean. We have to make those changes.

Where will it all end?

Check out my DR Other Side blog to read my thoughts on a horrible racial incident at Rodriguez High School in Fairfield.

In Wading In, you can read a review of "The Water Horse" and Tony's take on the Confederate flag.