Buying Cheaply

After pricing my two lists – one with all of the food I wanted to buy and one with the cheaper options – I found a big difference in price between the two lists: $17.74. Even so, I was surprised by how cheap the first list was. For a family of four, I spent $109.74, an average of $1.31 per person per meal, a price that easily competes with any fast food restaurant. This list included organic food when it could, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and lower sodium and high fiber options. This was food that, for the most part, I could feel good about buying. One of these expensive choices, a Newman’s Own frozen pizza, felt good for its taste, its convenience, its whole grains (and high fiber), and the fact that all profits go to charity.

For my second list, I spent $92, only $1.10 per meal per person. Some of the food items I was able to keep the same, but my whole grain pasta, bread, and pizza were ditched for whiter, less fiber-dense versions. Organics were substituted with non-organic in most cases, and my black beans gained 400mg of sodium per person. In some cases, particularly the case of cereal, this made me feel bad about the foods I was choosing for my family. Did I really want cereal with that many artificial dyes? Did I really want milk that had growth hormones in it, possibly affecting the health of my children? Did I really want all of that extra sodium? For fruits and vegetables, the consideration was mostly between organic or not, though much of the produce was not offered as organic to begin with. In some cases, I also had to sacrifice taste. I much prefer the taste of the more expensive cereal – Honey Bunches of Oats – but it simply cost more. I also enjoy the taste of peanut butter that is just peanuts a lot more than something like Jiff peanut butter but, again, it costs more.

I can imagine going through Tops as an actual mother, concerned about money. I can imagine the emotions that might accompany choosing the cheaper food options. I can imagine both guilt and pride. Guilt for giving up on some health factors, perhaps the pesticide residues on my food. Pride, perhaps, for saving my family almost $20, money that could be spent on gas for getting to work or the children to school, money that could be spent on bills or perhaps even a fun weekend activity as a treat. And even with the cheaper options, I could still feel that my family was eating well, what with home-cooked meals every night but one and most of those containing plenty of tasty vegetables loaded with vitamins and fiber and fruits at both breakfast and lunch every day.

In addition to the direct health impacts of choosing the cheaper menu rather than the more expensive one, there is also just a sense that organic food and health food are items for the wealthy. Whether or not I can actually afford to buy that food, I may perceive those items as “high class” foods and may refrain from buying them because I think of them as too expensive rather than them actually being too expensive. Alternatively, I may choose to buy some of these items specifically because I perceive them as giving some sort of status. As discussed in the Fitchen article, poverty and hunger are cultural and relative in some ways. As a mother with a difficult financial situation, I might want to buy a few organic items as a show of my membership in mainstream American culture.

It was also interesting for me to encounter foods at Tops that I typically buy locally. For instance, I buy whole wheat bread from Creative Crust, but I often buy it from the Market House one day old. This whole-wheat option, one day old, is half-priced, which puts it at about $1.69 for a loaf, much better than the store-bought whole wheat for $2.67. Finding options like this, somewhere between the expensive and cheap options, might be a way that families could compromise on price. Additionally, though, some items are simply cheaper at the farmers’ market. At Tops, I had to spend $5.15 for three red peppers when, a couple of weeks ago, I bought a huge bag of red peppers at the farmers’ market for $6.00 (maybe 15 peppers). Of course, this isn’t a year-round option, but it certainly makes sense when the season is right. The cultural belief that local food from farmers’ markets is expensive might keep me from even looking in these places for food, however, especially if I am strapped for time and cannot afford to make more than one grocery trip to get what I need.