Comments on: What is Driving the Rising Cost of Food?

By: Queercents » Blog Archive » Stretch Your Food Dollar: The Power of Potatoes

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:41:59 +0000

[...] the rising cost of many foods, potatoes remain one of the few food staples that seems to be inflation proof. You can still get a [...]

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By: Queercents » Blog Archive » Stretch Your Food Dollar: Fresh vs. Frozen

Queercents » Blog Archive » Stretch Your Food Dollar: Fresh vs. Frozen — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:21:51 +0000

[...] produce has gone up since the end of the summer. Part of that, of course, is the current trend of food inflation that has been tied to the rising price of oil (despite this week’s dip during the debates [...]

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By: thriftybrit

thriftybrit — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:46:45 +0000

I started grocery shopping and cooking thriftily about three years ago and I have saved about £10,000 all of which is now sitting in my bank account. I have replaced most of our meat meals with beans, eggs or cheese. We eat a lot of vegetables. I make all our meals and we rarely eat out and NEVER buy takeaways. I buy own brands and especially the 'value' labels. I only buy meat when it is on offer and never buy cheap chicken or pork as the animals are raised in cruelty. My grocery shopping went from £550 a month to £250 a month and that includes our petrol - which is much more expensive here, but our cars do more miles to the gallon, ours does 45. It can be done.

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By: Queercents » Blog Archive » Stretch Your Food Dollar: Rethinking Meat

Queercents » Blog Archive » Stretch Your Food Dollar: Rethinking Meat — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:28:46 +0000

[...] cost of meat is rising because the cost of corn is rising. In my first post of the series, I discussed that this was due to the rising cost of fuel, the production of corn for fuel, and the [...]

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By: FrugalZen

FrugalZen — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:38:42 +0000

I remember reading somewhere that in the Occident a piece of meat as large or larger than the other side dishes is called a meat dish while in the Orient adding 4 or 5 ounces of meat to a large dish of Rice and Vegetables entitles it to the label. As another side note I have several cookbooks from Taiwan published in both Chinese and English that among other things states that the food we eat in Oriental Restaurants is NOT the normal food they eat..it is Feast or Festival Food for Special Occassions. I've noticed this may be true sometimes when I shop the markets...Mamasan who owns one was enjoying her lunch one day...a Bowl of Rice and a Pickled Pigs Foot. ~ Roland

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By: Serena

Serena — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:47:54 +0000

Joe and Nina - Absolutely! I'll be talking about this more in my next piece, which will be about rethinking meat. But you both make an important point - we all want to see the standard of living rise amongst the world's poor. And the catch 22 occurs when that goal is realized and we have more people who can afford to consume more.

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By: Nina

Nina — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:20:09 +0000

Serena: I'm really looking forward to this series... I suspect it will be both informative and useful with the recipes. Joe brings up a good point about the world's burgeoning middle class. In June, the Financial Times put together an in depth study on The Rising Cost of Food. One article, called "We cannot go on eating like this" expands on this subject of per capita consumption:

It is all very awkward. China and India are getting richer. And it appears their new middle classes want all the things we want: cars, washing machines, even meat. Here in the west, we have to restrain ourselves from saying: “Stop. You can’t live like us. The planet can’t stand it. And our wallets can’t stand it. Have you seen the price of petrol?” Global equity is the awkward issue lying behind the world food crisis. In the long run, it will also prove fundamental to discussions on energy and global warming. But, for the moment, this difficult, abstract issue is largely obscured by the urgency of finding practical solutions to rising food prices.

For the politically minded, you can also click through to: A 10-point plan for tackling the food crisis.

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By: JoeTaxpayer

JoeTaxpayer — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:09:05 +0000

May I add 4&5? 4) The average Chinese person now consumes 110 pounds of meat per year, up from 44 pounds two decades ago. It takes 10 pounds of grain to produce one pound of pork and 20 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef. 5) As the world's middle class increases, rising food cost isn't immediately tempered by a drop in demand. On one hand, this is a positive, fewer people in the world going hungry, but it also means less price elasticity, so small increases in cost don't reduce demand, and that cost sticks. Joe

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