Your food basket changing?

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Burning Petard
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Your food basket changing?

Post by Burning Petard »

I am buying more produce. Greens, root veggies, stuff I have never cooked before, like Japanese Radish. But the big surprise for me was in the meat aisle this afternoon. I have been thinking chili, meatloaf, that kind of stuff. The prices for ground meats caught me completely by surprise. Bird Flu is real here in the DelMarVA peninsula. Ground beef was cheaper than ground chicken or ground turkey, by about a dollar a pound! And ground pork was even lower than the rest. I am on a cardiac-driven low salt, low fat diet. I was pleasantly eager for salt-free potato and corn chips. In the past that has been scarce. Not today. And a very low salt salsa was also there with lots of pineapple in it. I am making my own soup in big batches and freezing it. prepared soups have a fantastic salt content, even the ones with 'heart healthy' label.

snailgate

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Joe Guy
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by Joe Guy »

The prices for a lot of types of food around here (SF Bay Area) have increased by ridiculously large amounts. I did some figuring on the things I normally buy at grocery stores and the price increase averages around 60% higher than a year ago on most frozen and unfrozen foods and about 20 to 30% on fresh vegetables. The rise in costs of all goods far outweigh the national inflation rate, which Google tells me is 8.20% today.

Here's one example. Although I knew I was buying "empty calories", I started buying "Skinny Cow" chocolate ice cream cones a couple years ago and decided that it's okay for me to eat them occasionally. I like to have one while watching late night TV and it's the only type of "junk food" I buy. A box of four cones would once go "on sale" for $3.99 once per month at one of two of the grocery stores I go to to buy them. Most grocery stores I go to don't sell them so my shopping options for the cones is very limited. Anyway, the normal price at one place I buy them was $4.99 until early this year.

Today I saw the cones at the grocery store and they were selling for $8.79 per box.

From my limited perspective it seems that many vendors must be making larger profits since inflation has increased. It's as though inflation has given them an opportunity to make more money. Am I not understanding something? Shouldn't an 8% inflation rate mean that costs for most consumer goods have increased by around 8%?

I don't know what else to add other than duh, I don't get it..... :?

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BoSoxGal
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by BoSoxGal »

The rise of prices especially on ‘luxury’ food items is sticker shocking, for sure.

I am cutting back on treat foods but that’s not a bad thing and I’m certainly not starving.

I’m surprised to hear about the chicken prices in your neck of the woods snailgate - don’t you live in chicken country, if I recall correctly? Chicken is one of the few things that hasn’t gone crazy here so I’m still buying quite a bit. I’m paying a little more for boneless chicken thighs for my curries, but not a lot more. I still can occasionally get the bone in thighs on sale for 99 cents per pound and regular they are 1.69/lb - that’s what I feed my dog so a good price.

Some luxury things I just can’t live without one of which is my Bel Gioioso four cheese blend shredded mix for pasta and such, it has gone up $1.50 since the great inflation so I just use it sparingly and less often.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

I really have not seen prices going up that much. Trader Joe's where I do most of my shopping has held the line on prices except meat which I buy little of anyway. (Low salt and low-ish fat diet for much the same cardiac reasons as SG.). But chicken is still absurdly cheap and a little goes a long way.

I still go to Kroger for stuff - cleaning products etc. - which TJ does not have. Basic un-fancy cereal - generic rice crispies and shredded wheat - seems to be the same price as always. Having said that prices are not going up, sales like soup for $0.99 a can seem to be much less frequent - I used to stock up on those sales and then not buy it again until the sale came around again in 6 months or so. Kroger do a good selection of half price stuff which is nearing the sell by date so I stock up on ground beef at $3.99 /lb instead of $7.99 and it goes straight to the freezer and it's fine. Cheese the same - never pay full price and wait for it to be a day or two short of the best by date - and you can get some great bargains on unusual cheese. And I buy rice from the local Patel Bros in feed-the-village bags and I'm not sure whether it works out at $0.25 a portion or $0.30 but I don't really care - it's still dirt cheap. (Literally - I think I pay more for a bag of good potting soil.)

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BoSoxGal
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by BoSoxGal »

ex-khobar Andy wrote:
Fri Oct 14, 2022 1:23 am
And I buy rice from the local Patel Bros
How did I get to be this many years old before hearing about Patel Bros? And how lucky am I that of only three locations in my state, one of them is a couple of towns away from me?

Thanks for the head’s up!
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Gob
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by Gob »

I always live frugally when Hen is back in Aus, so my grocery bill isn't hugely changed.

When she is back that's a different matter.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Sue U
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by Sue U »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Fri Oct 14, 2022 1:10 am
I’m surprised to hear about the chicken prices in your neck of the woods snailgate - don’t you live in chicken country, if I recall correctly? Chicken is one of the few things that hasn’t gone crazy here so I’m still buying quite a bit. I’m paying a little more for boneless chicken thighs for my curries, but not a lot more. I still can occasionally get the bone in thighs on sale for 99 cents per pound and regular they are 1.69/lb - that’s what I feed my dog so a good price.
We eat a lot of chicken here, and chicken prices here have soared. Last year boneless skinless breasts were always regularly available at $1.89 -$1.99/lb, $1.49 on sale. Now it's almost impossible to find them for under $2.99. Boneless skinless thighs used to be reliably 20-30% cheaper than breasts, now they're at par. Bone-in thighs had always been regularly $.89-$.99/lb, $.79 on sale, now they're $1.69-$1.79 and I haven't seen a sale for a couple of months at least. Turkey breast, ground turkey and turkey sausage all have had similar price increases. Fresh fish, too, is up more than 25% (farmed Atlantic salmon, formerly $6.99/lb is now $8.99). In good news, though, the price of both Impossible and Beyond meat substitutes has fallen and I can regularly find them on sale for $6.99/lb or less.

Produce is up somewhat, generally around 10-15%, but not nearly as much as animal proteins. And last week I found butternut and spaghetti squash on sale for $.69/lb, which is still cheap.
GAH!

Burning Petard
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by Burning Petard »

Bone-in(or out) chicken thighs have been one of my protein stapes, along with frozen fish filets and cooked whole chicken at Costco. The cooked chicken loss-leader is still there, but the frozen fish is just too expensive. Costco is less than 3 miles away for me, closer than any super market. My Costco purchases are now mostly limited to gas, frozen blueberries, Cheerios, and once a week or less a cooked chicken. I peel off as much of the outer layer as I can, then strip the meat, finally a big batch of chicken soup from the carcass Yes, chicken is the major cash crop for this area. It has been hit hard by bird flu in the last year. I was in a Boston-Market week ago and they had NO chicken. The other fast food chicken places around don't seem to have a problem. The prices at the Colonel and Popeyes have been creeping up. Chick-filet still has huge lines clear out the parking lot and that is enough to keep me away. But the chicken in the super markets has really changed in the last three months. Less and less choice and the price goes up.

Fresh produce, if I shop carefully at various sources is worth the time. Tuesday I made squash and kale soup with lots of other veggies and NO salt at all soup which turned out to be very good. Tomorrow I am going to a roadside stand where I know I can get big cabbage that was growing in the field an hour before I buy it. Also some good apples.

snailgate

Jarlaxle
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by Jarlaxle »

Never thought I'd see eight bucks a pound for ground beef. :(

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Jarlaxle wrote:
Fri Oct 14, 2022 4:27 pm
Never thought I'd see eight bucks a pound for ground beef. :(
Bought some yesterday for $2.49/lb — and that's for 1-pound packages as opposed to buying a five-pound 'family pack' and then parting it out and rewrapping it for the freezer.  And this was from one of those gas-and-go convenience stores, no less!

I'll grant you it's kinda low-quality ... 75% lean, but if you drain off the fat after browning it, it tastes just as good in a pan of hamburger helper, or grilled over the coals and made into a cheeseburger, or simmered into a kettle of chili (especially after I add some of my 'enhancements' and spices) as the 92% lean stuff.
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Long Run
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Re: Your food basket changing?

Post by Long Run »

I've had to give up the Wagyu beef at $119 per pound:


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