As mentioned before, there's a thread coming up on hunger in this country prompted by yet another journalist who would apparently drop dead of malnutrition if she had to live on a budget for an extended period.
A big part of this story is the way different classes perceive budgets and shopping and the way most journalists have internalized upper and upper-middle class perceptions. It's telling that when a journalist had to find the cheapest place to buy food, she thought of Trader Joe's rather than a warehouse grocery like Food-4-Less or Aldi (which actually owns Trader Joe's but it's a very different brand).
Don't get me wrong. I shop at Trader Joe's all the time -- It's convenient, it's reasonable and the store brands are excellent.-- but if I were trying to feed myself on less than thirty dollars a week, I would shop there less.
A big part of the secret to the chain's success lies in its ability to offer pretty good bargains while maintaining its foodie street cred. The stores tend to cater to upscale, urban singles and couples whose cooking often consists of throwing frozen dinners in a microwave. Trader Joe's has discovered that, if you make these dinners seem a bit fancier or more exotic, your customers will feel more like urban sophisticates and less like pathetic losers.
That said, I really do like the Lamb Vindaloo.
Fair enough. It is indeed possible to survive on a very limited budget.
ReplyDeleteBut it speaks poorly of our agricultural industry that anybody needs to do so in this way. We no longer live in an era of food scarcity. With a fraction of our agricultural resources we can easily produce enough food so that everybody can eat wholesome, satisfying, nutritious and palatable meals. Yet we have not dedicated those resources to that end. Instead, we have some who must question where their next meals will come from, and others who are being overfed into obesity, diabetes, and death.
In what universe does that makes sense? I suspect history will judge us very harshly for our misuse of the amazing food-production technologies at our disposal.