Common Cuisine |

Last week I discussed the problem of rising food prices and how they have developed out of an imbalance in the global food economy. The question is, how do we at home survive the global economic balancing act? With an ever increasing demand on our resources, we face greater pressure to protect our own bottom line.

One powerful answer has an entire problem-solving movement named after it. Conservation primarily involves lowering consumption of resources; and promoting use of alternative resources that don’t do harm to the ecosystem that produces them. I see three valuable ways of applying conservation to my grocery shopping.

Spend Less
On the smallest scale, don’t buy as much. I don’t have the source, but I read once that Americans throw away about 10% of the produce we buy because it spoils before we can get to it. So let’s think about it: if I were to reduce the amount of food I purchase, would I really be taking away from my family, or would I just be donating less to the green waste bin?

Taking it to the opposite end of the scale, consider this before you go house hunting for a new home for your growing family: in addition to costing more upfront and in property taxes, a larger house will require larger amounts of power to heat, cool, light and otherwise power. In addition to which, the larger your house is, the greater your chances that the kitchen is a long trek from the garage with an armful of groceries!

We are looking at houses while we wait for our vacant one to sell, and this is a tough consideration for me. My husband is a big and tall guy, and smaller floor plans have smaller rooms and lower ceilings, leaving him with a sense of claustrophobia. In addition, we both crave a home office (as in, one for each of us). This makes it a little difficult to realistically think we could fit ourselves and three or four kids into 1500 square feet. But it is very tempting to remember that a smaller house will ultimately leave us with greater discretionary income, due to reduced mortgage, property tax, utilities and upkeep costs. It all adds up, helping both me and the environment.

Spend Smart
Did you know that you have spending power? Oh, yes, it’s one of your best weapons. Everyone has to spend money on food, and each purchase is like a vote for the products you choose. Every time you choose organic produce; dairy and meat products produced without hormones; and food that uses less packaging, you are voting for preserving our ecosystem.

Right now, buying better food does usually mean spending more. But each vote you cast for that better food brings it closer to mainstream, which helps bring the cost down. Just do the best you can to save money elsewhere, and watch closely for sales on your ideal items. You can choose your top priority organics, such as apples, carrots and strawberries; start with milk and add other dairy products gradually; and buy a filter for your tap so you aren’t buying and throwing away dozens of water bottles every month.

Don’t spend at all
This is such a simple idea, but is one worth addressing in our materialistic culture. Sometimes we get tempted to buy something we don’t really need. I find it wise to stop and ask myself, am I purchasing this to add something to my collection or to replace something old? If the answer is, “add,” then where will I put it? How much will I need it? Do I already have the means to accomplish what this tool can do? If the answer is, “replace,” then what will I do with the thing I am replacing? Is it really in need of replacement? A few months ago my husband presented me with the opportunity to buy a new Roomba floor cleaning robot from a friend who had bought two. Now, I think this gadget is way cool. But we already have a three-year old Dyson vacuum that works just fine. So I had to decline the opportunity for now. When my Dyson reaches the end of its life, I will check out the robot worker scene again.

One way to not spend at the grocery is to go armed with a battle plan and a full tummy. Then you know what you are going for, and you have the fortitude to stick to it. Then you can congratulate yourself on how much you didn’t have to save, because you didn’t buy those great bargains in the first place! Warning: just don’t let your reward be a purchase from the impulse section in the checkout line, I’ve been sabotaged by that logic more than once!

It seems obvious to me that helping ourselves and helping the world are interconnected. The less we spend of our financial resources, the more we have left. And the less we consume, the more is left in the global supply. As we buy smarter, we choose products that last longer or work better, which leads to lower overall consumption as well as less demand on global resources. As each individual makes the commitment to use less and buy more intelligently, our efforts will add up to make a difference.

Good luck to you as you attempt to implement these principles to protect your bottom line.

How is world news affecting you these days? I try not to pay too much attention, because I have a vacant house for sale in this faltering economy. I have tried to limit my reading of the newspaper, at least until that gets resolved. The only thing to be accomplished by reading all about the mortgage crisis and the impending recession is to get me uptight about a situation that is out of my control for the moment.

But there is something going on that I cannot ignore. Have you noticed yet how the news of what’s going on “out there” is starting to be reflected in your monthly expenses? We recently moved to a different region of the country, at which time I made the switch to organics for meat, dairy, and some select produce. To me this explained the significant increase in my weekly grocery bill. But as I have begun looking longingly back at the ordinary apples and milk in hopes of saving a few dollars, I am not seeing as much of a price spread as I remember. What happened when I wasn’t looking?

It seems that food prices globally are responding to increasing pressure from multiple sources: Severe weather in Australia and Argentina, among other places, has diminished supply, at a time when producers’ reserves are down, due to increased standards of living in the huge countries of China and India.

In addition, as oil prices continue their stiff climb, higher fuel cost leads to higher production and transportation cost, which gets factored into the end cost, which consumers pay. To help counteract the fuel factor, some of our usual sources of food have been reallocated to become fuel resources. But now higher corn and soybean prices are increasing the price of feed, which in turn increases the price of poultry, meat and dairy products. The summers when we could buy twelve ears of corn for a dollar, or even two, are gone.

To put the squeeze from yet another direction, our US economy is in a fragile situation, if you believe the news. Falling interest rates mean higher inflation, which means your money buys less than it did not too long ago. Natural gas and electricity are increasing in cost due to a shortage of supply; home prices are falling due to a culture of poor lending practices among the mortgage industry, finally correcting itself.

And all of those factors are being reflected in the bottom line on my grocery receipt, which according to some research reflects a five percent increase over last year. The painful realization is that many staple items such as milk, eggs, beef and wheat have increased between 25 and 50%.

The natural principle at work here is that economy is built on a balance between supply and demand. Prices of products are always fluctuating; sometimes there is a bit more supply, sometimes a bit more demand. In an ideal capitalistic economy, demand will slightly outpace supply. Right now, the equation is unbalanced with too much demand for food resources, and a food supply that has been globally diminished on multiple fronts.

The good news is, the equation will naturally right itself, sooner or later. Growers will increase their production of needed crops, because with more demand they can get paid more for growing them. Governments will eventually change policy to encourage greater production in areas of need. Higher cost of transportation may lead us to increase consumption of locally grown produce and goods, as well as take the step into more fuel-efficient vehicles. If critical markets slide or crash, perhaps that will bring a relief to the high price of oil (which still seems to mystify those of us outside the oil industry as to its true cause). Long term, there are good results to come from this imbalance.

In the meantime, it is time to take action. What are you doing to protect your family budget at the grocery? In the next few weeks I will be discussing responsible and effective ways we can make our food budget stretch to the max.

Well I just have to share with you a fabulous food site I just found, courtesy of my husband who ceaselessly scours the web for interesting and funny websites, pics and videos. This one is called pimpthatsnack.com, and it documents people’s successes (and fabulous failures) making all the best snacks you love bigger and better. I just about cried myself silly reading a story about someone’s adventure making the mothership of all Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Enjoy…

I read an interesting article last summer about the decline of the Red Delicious apple. Apparently the variety we get in our markets today is a far cry from the apple people fell in love with a hundred years ago. In response to consumer demand, growers developed the apple to have a more appealing bright red color and more durable thick skin.

Reds do last up to a year in cold storage, and make a beautiful display. However, due to playing with the variety maybe too much, the quality of Red Delicious has declined significantly in the last 20 to 30 years, to the point that few people are buying them anymore. Other varieties like Gala and Fuji are on the rise as the dominant sweet red apples.

As I read this article I began to understand why, for so many years, I have been disinterested in Red Delicious apples to the point that I will hardly eat red apples at all for fear of eating a Red Delicious by mistake. But it turns out the problem is not so much with the apple itself as the fact that it is difficult to tell when to harvest it for optimum flavor.

This is good news, because one of my three apple trees is a Red Delicious. It did not bear fruit this year due to severe wind damage last year. And I am glad for that because my Golden Delicious tree went haywire, producing several thousand apples by my best estimate. I have had enough to do with the fruit from one obnoxious tree and one tree (a Jonagold) with light production. But after reading this article, I have hope that I can harvest that Red Delicious tree next year in waves, and catch as many apples as possible at their peak of ripeness and flavor. I’ll let you know how they grow.