Why Making Food Matters

I just heard an enlightening broadcast on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show about how food companies are raising prices.  Basically the cost of making food has gone up because the price of fuel and pesticides has gone up.  These increases must be passed along to the consumer in one of three ways:

1.  Raise the actual price.  An honest, but rare practice.

2.  Package in a smaller quantities and keep the price the same.  This can be done so we don’t even see the difference, such as a dimple in the bottom of a jar of peanut butter.  It looks the same, costs the same, but is less product.

3.  Reduce the quality.  Apparently ice-cream companies are working to increase the air in their products.  Also some big box stores have products from reputable brands watered down, but packaged exactly the same.

I highly recommend reading the transcript or listening to this discussion.  It’s very informative.

Mamaguru’s solutions to this problem include:

1.  Make your own food.  Even if the cost of staples increases, you can save money by not paying a company to prepare it for you.  Those companies never cut out their own profits.

2.  Buy locally.  The less fuel needed to get your food to you the better.  On average food travels 1800 miles to each consumer.

3.  Grow your own food.  This is similar to #1, but gardening eliminates all fuel costs in food.  The sun provides free energy to grow it and you pick it with your own two hands.

4.  Protest against farm subsidies which only help food companies.  These subsidies pressure farmers to grow excessive amounts of corn and soybeans to support food companies.  The corn and soybeans are then processed into chemical components with which food products (and ethanol and now soda bottles) are made, rather than actual food.  Squandering our fertile soil for commodities instead of good nutritious food is a sin.  Farm subsidies support America’s malnourished obesity epidemic.

5.  Inform yourself and others about the political and economical realities of our dysfunctional food chain.  Use mamaguru.com as one of your resources through our weekly Making Groceries column.