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Heard on the radio a few days ago: an economist prating on about how the rising cost of groceries will actually cause more consumers to switch over to organic food, because the rising basic costs of *all* food will make the price difference seem more trivial.
Observation #1: Based on what I've been seeing so far, the price bonus of organic food is scaling upward on (at least!) as a geometric multiplier rather than remaining at a constant arithmetic jump.
Observation #2: This economist has clearly never had to keep a constant running total in his head while walking around the supermarket with a grocery basket, checking for sales before determining which *one* source of animal protein he might be able to afford-- milk? eggs? maybe a smallish piece of meat[*] will be marked down for pending sell-by date?-- assuming that *any* of them fit into the budget this time and it won't just be another week of beans and rice, mixed with whatever dented cans or slightly wilted veggies were in the discount rack.
[*: Or random parts; oxtails and chicken livers used to be much cheaper than the usual muscle cuts. Now they're not. I don't know why.)
Luckily, I haven't been stuck in the latter situation for quite some time now and am unlikely to be forced back into it, but I certainly remember doing that for several years. $5/week didn't go very far on food even in the late 80s and early 90s; my horizons felt thrown wide open when at some point, I was actually able to double my food budget to a princely $10/week.
Observation #1: Based on what I've been seeing so far, the price bonus of organic food is scaling upward on (at least!) as a geometric multiplier rather than remaining at a constant arithmetic jump.
Observation #2: This economist has clearly never had to keep a constant running total in his head while walking around the supermarket with a grocery basket, checking for sales before determining which *one* source of animal protein he might be able to afford-- milk? eggs? maybe a smallish piece of meat[*] will be marked down for pending sell-by date?-- assuming that *any* of them fit into the budget this time and it won't just be another week of beans and rice, mixed with whatever dented cans or slightly wilted veggies were in the discount rack.
[*: Or random parts; oxtails and chicken livers used to be much cheaper than the usual muscle cuts. Now they're not. I don't know why.)
Luckily, I haven't been stuck in the latter situation for quite some time now and am unlikely to be forced back into it, but I certainly remember doing that for several years. $5/week didn't go very far on food even in the late 80s and early 90s; my horizons felt thrown wide open when at some point, I was actually able to double my food budget to a princely $10/week.