Bulova watches are luxury items. Organic beets are not.
OK, since I can't seem to add my own comment, I'll have to add this bit at the top.
In regard to the second comment -- which doesn't address the main topic at all, but only puts forth an unfounded assumption -- the list of items presented below wasn't what I went shopping for that night. I went to Meijer for the sole purpose of collecting data. I looked at items that I might typically buy, as well as more mainstream items that I wouldn't (sausage, coffee, processed cheese), and I scribbled out the prices as I crisscrossed the store. I left with nothing an hour or so later because we'd gone shopping days earlier.
"Obvious I don't cook?" If I actually shopped for and ate all of the things in that list, maybe one could infer that. But the list below isn't everything I compared. That list was probably 30% longer and it contained a lot more produce, meat (again, something I don't buy) and dry goods... things one would have to cook, which I do every day.
An example:
I was so riled by a sentence in Maureen Dowd's column, "The Aura of Arugulance," I wanted to drop everything and go shopping.
What? Yes, I wanted to go shopping. Or, more truthfully, I wanted to go pricing so that I could disprove this statement: "organic food is an expensive luxury item, something bought by those who have the resources."
That wasn't something that Maureen Dowd wrote, of course. This assertion was made by Julie Gunlock in a piece called "Alice in Wonderland" for National Review Online.
Gunlock takes to task the chef Alice Waters and her decade-long campaign for a White House organic garden. She paints organic food advocates as -- you've heard it before -- rich, East Coast (or, in Waters' case, Berkeley) elitists who look down upon the trough-eating commoners.
People who indulge in $4 bunches of grapes while regular folks struggle with their expenses, or who show no appreciation for the inexpensive (*cough* subsidized) bounty that America's farmers provide for the world, are characterizations that Gunlock uses in an attempt to portray an organic uberclass that is ignorant of mainstream reality.
In Gunlock's opinion, food advocates like Waters won't admit that organics are luxuries that are priced out of most people's reach. She writes, "in this economic downturn, when about one in eight adults is currently out of a job and looking for work, many families are not just cutting back on luxuries, but are reassessing their food budgets and trying to save every penny they can."
Well, I certainly understand that. In fact, I am one of those one in eight adults without a job. I have been for nine months, now. Yet my partner and I, spending no more (and usually well less) than $40 each per week, buy mostly organic groceries.
To point out the fallacy in Gunlock's argument, I went to the local Meijer supermarket in South Elgin, IL, to compare prices for organic or vegetarian foods, and their conventional or meat-based counterparts.
(For people who don't live in the Midwest, Meijer is something like Wal-Mart: the stores sell groceries, clothing, home and automotive products, electronics, etc. I live in a suburban-to-rural area, one hour west of Chicago. The demographics are mostly white and mostly middle class, with a burgeoning working-class Latino population. There are no Whole Paychecks around here. My point is, this is no playground for some imagined epicurean elite.)
Anyway, here we go:
Organic Gala apples, 3 lb. bag: $3.69
Regular Gala apples, 3 lb. bag: $3.49
Organic Russet potatoes, 5 lb. bag: $3.49
Regular Russet potatoes, 5 lb. bag: $4.99 ($.99/lb)
Organic spring salad mix, 5 oz.: $3.29
Regular spring salad mix, 5 oz.: $3.29
Organic raisins, 15 oz.: $3.99
Regular raisins, 15 oz.: $2.29
(We always get the regular raisins.)
Meijer-brand organic cookies+cream ice cream, 1.42 L.: $5.09
Breyer's cookies+cream ice cream, 1.42 L.: $5.69
Rudi's organic wheat+oat bread, 20 oz.: $3.49
Home Pride split-top wheat bread, 20 oz.: $3.19
Meijer-brand organic vitamin D milk, 1 gal.: $5.69
Meijer brand vitamin D milk, 1 gal.: 2.19
Meijer-brand organic soymilk, half-gallon: $5.98
Silk regular soymilk, half-gallon: $7.18
(We don't get either type of milk listed, but instead we buy a couple of 64 fl. oz. rice milks priced at $2.69 each at a nearby Trader Joes.)
Earth Balance organic buttery spread, 15 oz.: $2.79
Country Crock buttery spread, 15 oz.: $2.49
Meijer-brand organic fruit rings cereal, 13 oz.: $3.29
General Mills Fruity Cheerios, 12 oz.: $2.75
Meijer-brand organic instant oatmeal, 11.29 oz.: $2.99
Quaker instant oatmeal, 11.8 oz.: $3.29
Gimme Lean veggie sausage, 14 oz.: $3.49
Jimmy Dean regular sausage, 16 oz.: $4.19
Veggie Slices "cheese product food alternative," 7.3 oz.: $2.99
Kraft American "cheese food product," 12 oz.: $3.79
Meijer-brand organic tomato soup, 14.5 oz.: $1.69
Campbell's tomato soup, 10.5 oz.: $.72
Meijer-brand organic spaghetti, 16 oz.: $1.99
Creamette spaghetti, 16 oz.: $1.70
Meijer-brand organic pasta sauce, 26 oz.: $2.12
Prego pasta sauce, 26 oz.: $1.79
Lightlife Jumbo Smart Dogs, 13.5 oz.: $3.49
Oscar Mayer beef franks, 16 oz.: $3.58
Meijer-brand organic house blend coffee, 11 oz.: $3.69
Maxwell House original coffee, 11.5 oz.: $4.93
Florida Crystals organic sugar, 2 lb.: $2.79
Domino cane sugar, 2 lb.: $1.99
Total for organic and veg products: $58.04
(substituting the regular raisins for organic, and rice milk for cow or soy)
Total for conventional and meat products: $60.05
Looking at the totals, compiled from prices at an average store in the suburban Farm Belt, is it correct to describe organic foods as elite luxury items? I don't think so.
This isn't a perfect comparison of what we would buy versus what someone else might purchase. For example, who buys just one can of soup? On the other hand, we don't ever buy coffee or "cheese food products." Fake meats, ice cream and sugar are rare purchases. Bread, pasta, oatmeal and cereal are every-other-week items that we usually get for less at other stores. And as I pointed out, we don't always get the organic versions.
Just because we prefer to buy organic doesn't mean we're high-minded, free-spending elitists. We are just like the "regular people" that Gunlock wants to champion -- and regular people are just like us. We all want food that will nourish and sustain us, and we want that food to be affordable.
What's different -- just different, not superior -- is our knowledge about the methods used to produce food in industrial agriculture, and what effects those methods can have on the environment and people's health. As a result, we try to obtain products that are more wholesome, and that don't contribute to the degradation of land and water. And we make our choices with economy in mind.
Pointing out extreme cases of how much organic food can cost, and making all sorts of negative judgments about the kind of people who buy it, doesn't address a central issue that drives demand for such products. Namely, industrial food is artificially cheap, nutritionally suspect and unsustainably produced.
The "robust agricultural sector" that Gunlock mentions is overwhelmingly comprised of subsidized megafarms. The "innovations" employed on these farms are the application of chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that burn out the soil, pollute groundwater and rivers, and destroy many of the lifeforms that live in connected ecosystems. Much of the staple seed that's grown (corn, wheat, soybeans) has been genetically modified with little to no understanding of what those modifications will mean for future human and animal health, or the genetic integrity of natural plant species.
Organic food can be more expensive because its production doesn't rely on cheap chemicals and subsidies. The work can be more intensive, and the farm workers and food processors who produce organic items are asking for prices that fairly compensate their effort. Other factors related to higher pricing for organic food are specialized distribution networks (compared to massive, centralized supply chains) and niche demand in the market.
Sometimes, prices are just a factor of location. Metropolitan and specialty, upscale stores will tend to be more expensive than suburban outlets, but some chains (like Jewel Osco out here, or QFC in Seattle) charge higher prices for everything, no matter where they're located. In those cases, organics end up being even higher (and, honestly, I don't know who buys food for those prices, or how those stores stay in business).
Gunlock's harping about $4 organic grapes at a farmers' market is a bit of red herring, because those markets are where one can often find great deals for fresh food. If prices at these markets are so exorbitant, as Gunlock mght have one believe, then how is that more farmers' markets are popping up in communities across the country every year?
I think it's because people -- regular people -- want something different and something better. That's the reason so much attention is being given to food choices and policy. It's because people across the demographic spectrum -- not just some caricature of the elite -- are changing their habits and choices, and the market is changing to meet their demands. I think those are changes that ought to be encouraged and embraced because the benefits for our nation's ecology and health will be profound.
In regard to the second comment -- which doesn't address the main topic at all, but only puts forth an unfounded assumption -- the list of items presented below wasn't what I went shopping for that night. I went to Meijer for the sole purpose of collecting data. I looked at items that I might typically buy, as well as more mainstream items that I wouldn't (sausage, coffee, processed cheese), and I scribbled out the prices as I crisscrossed the store. I left with nothing an hour or so later because we'd gone shopping days earlier.
"Obvious I don't cook?" If I actually shopped for and ate all of the things in that list, maybe one could infer that. But the list below isn't everything I compared. That list was probably 30% longer and it contained a lot more produce, meat (again, something I don't buy) and dry goods... things one would have to cook, which I do every day.
An example:
I was so riled by a sentence in Maureen Dowd's column, "The Aura of Arugulance," I wanted to drop everything and go shopping.
What? Yes, I wanted to go shopping. Or, more truthfully, I wanted to go pricing so that I could disprove this statement: "organic food is an expensive luxury item, something bought by those who have the resources."
That wasn't something that Maureen Dowd wrote, of course. This assertion was made by Julie Gunlock in a piece called "Alice in Wonderland" for National Review Online.
Gunlock takes to task the chef Alice Waters and her decade-long campaign for a White House organic garden. She paints organic food advocates as -- you've heard it before -- rich, East Coast (or, in Waters' case, Berkeley) elitists who look down upon the trough-eating commoners.
People who indulge in $4 bunches of grapes while regular folks struggle with their expenses, or who show no appreciation for the inexpensive (*cough* subsidized) bounty that America's farmers provide for the world, are characterizations that Gunlock uses in an attempt to portray an organic uberclass that is ignorant of mainstream reality.
In Gunlock's opinion, food advocates like Waters won't admit that organics are luxuries that are priced out of most people's reach. She writes, "in this economic downturn, when about one in eight adults is currently out of a job and looking for work, many families are not just cutting back on luxuries, but are reassessing their food budgets and trying to save every penny they can."
Well, I certainly understand that. In fact, I am one of those one in eight adults without a job. I have been for nine months, now. Yet my partner and I, spending no more (and usually well less) than $40 each per week, buy mostly organic groceries.
To point out the fallacy in Gunlock's argument, I went to the local Meijer supermarket in South Elgin, IL, to compare prices for organic or vegetarian foods, and their conventional or meat-based counterparts.
(For people who don't live in the Midwest, Meijer is something like Wal-Mart: the stores sell groceries, clothing, home and automotive products, electronics, etc. I live in a suburban-to-rural area, one hour west of Chicago. The demographics are mostly white and mostly middle class, with a burgeoning working-class Latino population. There are no Whole Paychecks around here. My point is, this is no playground for some imagined epicurean elite.)
Anyway, here we go:
Organic Gala apples, 3 lb. bag: $3.69
Regular Gala apples, 3 lb. bag: $3.49
Organic Russet potatoes, 5 lb. bag: $3.49
Regular Russet potatoes, 5 lb. bag: $4.99 ($.99/lb)
Organic spring salad mix, 5 oz.: $3.29
Regular spring salad mix, 5 oz.: $3.29
Organic raisins, 15 oz.: $3.99
Regular raisins, 15 oz.: $2.29
(We always get the regular raisins.)
Meijer-brand organic cookies+cream ice cream, 1.42 L.: $5.09
Breyer's cookies+cream ice cream, 1.42 L.: $5.69
Rudi's organic wheat+oat bread, 20 oz.: $3.49
Home Pride split-top wheat bread, 20 oz.: $3.19
Meijer-brand organic vitamin D milk, 1 gal.: $5.69
Meijer brand vitamin D milk, 1 gal.: 2.19
Meijer-brand organic soymilk, half-gallon: $5.98
Silk regular soymilk, half-gallon: $7.18
(We don't get either type of milk listed, but instead we buy a couple of 64 fl. oz. rice milks priced at $2.69 each at a nearby Trader Joes.)
Earth Balance organic buttery spread, 15 oz.: $2.79
Country Crock buttery spread, 15 oz.: $2.49
Meijer-brand organic fruit rings cereal, 13 oz.: $3.29
General Mills Fruity Cheerios, 12 oz.: $2.75
Meijer-brand organic instant oatmeal, 11.29 oz.: $2.99
Quaker instant oatmeal, 11.8 oz.: $3.29
Gimme Lean veggie sausage, 14 oz.: $3.49
Jimmy Dean regular sausage, 16 oz.: $4.19
Veggie Slices "cheese product food alternative," 7.3 oz.: $2.99
Kraft American "cheese food product," 12 oz.: $3.79
Meijer-brand organic tomato soup, 14.5 oz.: $1.69
Campbell's tomato soup, 10.5 oz.: $.72
Meijer-brand organic spaghetti, 16 oz.: $1.99
Creamette spaghetti, 16 oz.: $1.70
Meijer-brand organic pasta sauce, 26 oz.: $2.12
Prego pasta sauce, 26 oz.: $1.79
Lightlife Jumbo Smart Dogs, 13.5 oz.: $3.49
Oscar Mayer beef franks, 16 oz.: $3.58
Meijer-brand organic house blend coffee, 11 oz.: $3.69
Maxwell House original coffee, 11.5 oz.: $4.93
Florida Crystals organic sugar, 2 lb.: $2.79
Domino cane sugar, 2 lb.: $1.99
Total for organic and veg products: $58.04
(substituting the regular raisins for organic, and rice milk for cow or soy)
Total for conventional and meat products: $60.05
Looking at the totals, compiled from prices at an average store in the suburban Farm Belt, is it correct to describe organic foods as elite luxury items? I don't think so.
This isn't a perfect comparison of what we would buy versus what someone else might purchase. For example, who buys just one can of soup? On the other hand, we don't ever buy coffee or "cheese food products." Fake meats, ice cream and sugar are rare purchases. Bread, pasta, oatmeal and cereal are every-other-week items that we usually get for less at other stores. And as I pointed out, we don't always get the organic versions.
Just because we prefer to buy organic doesn't mean we're high-minded, free-spending elitists. We are just like the "regular people" that Gunlock wants to champion -- and regular people are just like us. We all want food that will nourish and sustain us, and we want that food to be affordable.
What's different -- just different, not superior -- is our knowledge about the methods used to produce food in industrial agriculture, and what effects those methods can have on the environment and people's health. As a result, we try to obtain products that are more wholesome, and that don't contribute to the degradation of land and water. And we make our choices with economy in mind.
Pointing out extreme cases of how much organic food can cost, and making all sorts of negative judgments about the kind of people who buy it, doesn't address a central issue that drives demand for such products. Namely, industrial food is artificially cheap, nutritionally suspect and unsustainably produced.
The "robust agricultural sector" that Gunlock mentions is overwhelmingly comprised of subsidized megafarms. The "innovations" employed on these farms are the application of chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that burn out the soil, pollute groundwater and rivers, and destroy many of the lifeforms that live in connected ecosystems. Much of the staple seed that's grown (corn, wheat, soybeans) has been genetically modified with little to no understanding of what those modifications will mean for future human and animal health, or the genetic integrity of natural plant species.
Organic food can be more expensive because its production doesn't rely on cheap chemicals and subsidies. The work can be more intensive, and the farm workers and food processors who produce organic items are asking for prices that fairly compensate their effort. Other factors related to higher pricing for organic food are specialized distribution networks (compared to massive, centralized supply chains) and niche demand in the market.
Sometimes, prices are just a factor of location. Metropolitan and specialty, upscale stores will tend to be more expensive than suburban outlets, but some chains (like Jewel Osco out here, or QFC in Seattle) charge higher prices for everything, no matter where they're located. In those cases, organics end up being even higher (and, honestly, I don't know who buys food for those prices, or how those stores stay in business).
Gunlock's harping about $4 organic grapes at a farmers' market is a bit of red herring, because those markets are where one can often find great deals for fresh food. If prices at these markets are so exorbitant, as Gunlock mght have one believe, then how is that more farmers' markets are popping up in communities across the country every year?
I think it's because people -- regular people -- want something different and something better. That's the reason so much attention is being given to food choices and policy. It's because people across the demographic spectrum -- not just some caricature of the elite -- are changing their habits and choices, and the market is changing to meet their demands. I think those are changes that ought to be encouraged and embraced because the benefits for our nation's ecology and health will be profound.
posted by mr damon at
12:56 PM
2 Comments:
I was just thrilled to read that you got your organic stuff at Meijer. I live in the midwest myself, and there's not the fancy-schmancy organic stuff here. Just good ol' organics next to the brands. I think that's awesome!
It's obvious from your grocery list that you don't cook....
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