Grocery Store Blues: How do we keep up with higher food prices?

Crap. Where’s my wallet... again?

We may have a record wheat crop worldwide but prices will remain high, says the Canadian Wheat Board and US Dept. of Agriculture.

Many people’s wages or pensions won’t rise as quickly.


[“Kiss my penny collection good-bye!”: photo link]

Add in costs related to gas, home heating, rents and mortgages and we’re living inside the perfect storm.

Recently I whined:

“I’m up a pant size and my son’s wedding is just around the corner.”

So, at least in the food department, I will try to eat and spend less and it will honestly do me good. (And the recent addition of extra insulation in the attic and walls of this old house will hopefully save me more).

I think as bread and pasta prices rise [“during the past decade the price of bread has increased by 87 per cent”] I’ll balance things out by eating fewer restaurant meals and cutting back on pork and beef.

It helps that I’m motivated to lose 10 pounds.


["Harrison dekes around the defence..."; Photo in context]

My son’s wedding and hockey season approach and if you think new suit pants are expensive check out the price of hockey pants!

How are you adjusting to rising food prices?

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Live Small and Prosper: Self-restraint is easy and we all need easy

I entitled a very popular recent post [especially to the persistent J, whoever he may be]
Live Small and Prosper: The latest reason for practicing restraint out-shadows all others.

I suggested that eating less meat results in many positive benefits and that the absolute best reason is:



“It takes less effort than leaving the car at home to conserve fuel (our insatiable thirst for fossil fuels is another reason grain prices are on the rise) and we need an easy way to practice restraint over and over and over again until we get really really good at it so we’ll be ready for the hard hard times when they come.”

I know I’m right too. You can quote me on it.



(I mean, if we can give up cheeseburgers we can certainly take public transit.)

A great comment soon followed.

Theresa said...

That J dude is persistent, if unimaginative. 



Going vegetarian is one of the best things I've done as a human, I think. It was one of the easiest changes to make too, and one with a lot of positive consequences for me and for the world. Way easier than driving less or not using any plastic. When I found out how much food could be going to humans instead of animals, how much I lowered my risk of colitis and colon cancer (which runs in our family), and how I didn't want to be responsible for the de-beaking, and otherwise and inhumane practices of factory farms, I was just so done with meat.

Being vegetarian has actually broadened my diet, not restrained it at all! May 5, 2008 7:00 PM


[Photo: "Where does our business as usual philosophy end?" G. Harrison]

I told theresa I’m still a flexitarian (semi-vegetarian) and feel better for it. And it’s easy.

And we need ‘easy’.

[Visit below for more easy-reading Monday Memoirs]

Live Small and Prosper: The latest reason for practicing restraint out-shadows all others

I said in my most recent column that a quick look at the four main reasons grain prices are on the rise will reveal that our personal fingerprints are all over them.

One reason, greater meat consumption globally, is directly related to the beef, chicken and pork found in our refrigerators and freezers and since summer is approaching and big BBQs sit on 99.99999% of the back decks in North America I thought it would be a good time for us to start showing some restraint in our eating habits.


[Over-consumption is like planting a tree in concrete - GH]

There are many good reasons:

The world’s cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people - more than the entire population of the planet. [The Virtuous Consumer by Leslie Garrett]

Eighty per cent of agricultural land in the US is used to raise animals for food. [Ibid]

Less meat on the plate equals more crops for people and/or more land for Mother Nature. [Me]

A vegetarian diet is credited for providing a longer life with reduced risk of such diseases as diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease and some cancers. [The Virtuous Consumer - link to Leslie's personal website]

The animals live longer too and their numbers would decrease to more natural levels. [Me]

There is an even better reason to eat less meat.

It takes less effort than leaving the car at home to conserve fuel (our insatiable thirst for fossil fuels is another reason grain prices are on the rise) and we need an easy way to practice restraint over and over and over again until we get really really good at it so we’ll be ready for the hard hard times when they come.

I mean, if we can give up cheeseburgers we can certainly take public transit.

If we can say no to a tenderloin we can, with new internal fortitude, walk to the variety store for smokes and a bag of chips.

If we can eat fewer chicken wings and more beans and brussel sprouts - my gosh, hold onto your hats - we’ll find the strength to trade in the monster pickup for an electric scooter. Yowwzzah.

Practice does make perfect.

[Did you know that climate change will lead to fashion faupas? It surely will. Visit Four Mugs]

London Food Bank Challenge Part 3: Answering questions about my food choices

I am taking the London Food Bank Challenge this week, am eating meals from food items purchased for $30, had to drop St. Pat’s Day celebrations from my calendar (who can afford 3 pints of Guinness on a $30 budget?) and just finished lunch made with my own two hands.

The Food Bank wants to know how I’m doing, so here are a few words:

I think I can live on 30 bucks for 7 days and wait until 5 p.m. this coming Sunday for Guinness.

Preparing breakfasts for the duration was simple and cheap. I routinely eat a ton of oatmeal each winter and an eight-day batch, containing rolled oats supplemented with 1 or 2 teaspoons each of flaxseed, raisins, dried cranberries, bran, cornmeal, millet (birdseed), quinoa, and bulgar, totalled $1.25 or about 16 cents per day. Add a slice of toast and jam and I’m under 50 cents per day for a healthy start to the day.

Purists will take me to task about my oatmeal recipe (“What’s with the birdseed? It ain’t real oatmeal?”), I might be stepping outside the rules each morning by using my stash of free coffee cards from The Little Red Roaster (Guinness I can put on hold, but caffeine waits for no man) and my reputation for Spartan-like self-reliance may have been tarnished when I happily accepted a gift of chocolate chip cookies from a neighbour.


Pancake lunches and a huge homemade mac and cheese casserole keep costs under 50 and 75 cents per meal respectively.

Though I don’t look too manly in a frilly apron I’m finding my way around the kitchen without problem.

My wife even eyed my casserole enviously when I pulled it from the oven yesterday. I may be asked to create it again.

Conclusion: Meals can be cheap but I’m not eating a balanced diet so far. How do low-income families manage that important task?

London Food Bank Challenge: Part 1 - Spend only $30 for food for one week

Jane Roy, co-director of London’s Food Bank, called two days ago and asked if I’d be willing to take the Food Bank Challenge and live on a very small grocery budget for one week.

She explained that an average household (2.5 people) earning less than $20,000 per year spends only $72 on groceries.

“How much money am I allowed to spend?” I asked.

“We rounded it up to $30 for one person,” she replied.

Though I immediately saw a lot of oatmeal and a frilly apron in my future I said, “Sure, I’ll give it a try.”

Once off the phone I sat down in my study with pen and paper and started a short grocery list. Within a few minutes I realized ‘short’ was definitely the operative word.


I also realized if I wanted nutritious fruits and vegetables and a bit of meat on my list I’d have to cut back on a few familiar routines for the week.

For example, there would be no coffee, refill, bagel and cream cheese at The Red Roaster for breakfast every morning. My budget would be shot in no time.

Nor would there be the traditional cold beverage after my Friday hockey game if I wanted to eat on the weekend.

It dawned on me there could be a good story in the Food Bank challenge.

It had a defined beginning, middle and end, intrigue, involved eating and I have a weekly deadline.

I smell Pulitzer.

[Visit Four Mugs and eat, drink and be vegan to see what I may be eating this week]

More meaty quotes from The Omnivore’s Dilemma

I generally do my best reading while riding a recumbent bicycle in the basement.

My concentration is deep, pages fly by, I underline with jiggly lines many world famous quotes (well, they will be once everyone reads the same book and sees things the way I do), calories fall to the floor, beads of sweat form on my brow.

Not all of the beads are produced by the much-needed exercise.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan writes:

“When humankind acquired the power to fix nitrogen (make fertilizer from mountains of ammonium nitrate left over from WWll munition production in the U.S.), the basis of soil fertility shifted from a total reliance on the energy of the sun to a new reliance on fossil fuel.” (pg. 44)

Of course, being self-reliant is commendable in many ways but we supplant the sun at great personal and environmental cost.

The personal: Mountains of fertilizer turn into mountains of corn which, along with a mountain of antibiotics and truckloads of fat, feed millions of cows that become the meal of the day (in North America we eat a fifth of our meals in cars and feed a third of our children at a fast-food outlet every day) for an obese population.


The environmental: “The ultimate fate of the nitrates spread on cornfields (e.g. in Iowa) is to flow down the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico, where their deadly fertility poisons the marine ecosystem... creating a dead zone as big as the state of new Jersey”. (pg. 47)

I’ve finished only 20 per cent of the book so I’ve many miles to pedal before more important lessons have been learned.

But I can almost guarantee I’ll be less beefy by the time I reach the last page.

Quotes from ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ keep beef off my plate

I should take a few steps back from the line re meatloaf in my last post because, I’m not kidding, I have been eating a lot less meat for quite some time.

Though I do eat meat on occasion (yup, I’m a flexitarian) it is hardly ever beef - due to the influence of several books I’ve read, movies I’ve seen and informative comments from friends.

Good ideas in some books and great ideas in others usually find a home inside my little round head.

For example, I will never forget the sardonic Scaramouche (from the book of the same name by Rafael Sabatini) who was "born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."

I read the book twice while in my teens (all the way through too) and feel I am still much like him, though rather than mad I think the world is just a bit out of whack, slightly off kilter and in need of an extensive tune up. Now.

One of the three books I have on the go right now is affecting how I look at every meal I eat, and I eat a lot of them.


In The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan I am learning about the unsettling connections between oil, fertilizer, dead land, cheap corn, unnaturally fat cows, tons of antibiotics, truck loads of fat and doctors on factory farms who say things like:

“Hell, if you gave them (cattle) lots of grass and space, I wouldn’t have a job.”

It’s enough to make me take several more steps back from meatloaf.