Thursday, August 23, 2012

Food prices

I just finished my pregnant gal's dinner feast of $3.00 a pound farmers market heirloom tomato, japanese cucumber at $2.00 a pound topped with certified California olive oil and a dash of salt.  I also ate two small pieces of whole wheat organic bread with a slice of havarti melted on top.  The havarti is husbands, not organic.  As I drizzled olive oil on the exposed toast I thought, "This olive oil is so good." and I recalled the trip mum and I took and the wonderful olive oil store where I bought a gallon of it at tremendous cost.  I am "lucky" I don't have to worry about how much my food costs.  I live in a minority filled ghetto in SoCal, mexican music always blaring in cars that cruise, and an el camino across the ally that smells so bad on start up I have to run to close my windows lest the fumes infect my house, but my fridge is full of expensive organic greens, grass fed meats, and raw cheeses from europe.  If we lived in a more tony location, we would be poor.  (ok, not poor, but we wouldn't be able to save half of our income, which we need to do as 1,200 square foot houses cost $450,000 in a rough area of Pasadena.  With the baby, earning $120k just is not enough.)  I digress, I was thinking about rising food prices due to the drought and I thought, "I don't care".  My food is not made of corn or soy, two items I do not eat.  My organic meats (chicken and pork) and grass fed beef are not fed corn or soy, as almost no corn or soy grown in the US is organic.  Even my eggs are the ultra snotty free range chicken eggs, the chickens peck in wild fields eating grass seed and bugs! The yokes are bright orange.  If "chicken" suddenly costs $3 a pound, I don't care.  I already pay twice that.  If hamburgers are no longer $1, I don't care, I don't eat that.  I do wonder if the price of my food will increase along with the common food, since it can... or is the price of the food more based on the cost of production and the demand for organic foods?  The poor families around me  won't pay $6 a pound for chicken that was $2, they will eat less $4 chicken - they won't say, "hey, since the mutant chicken and the heritage breed pasture raised chicken are only separated by $3, let's get the fancy chicken"  no they won't say that.  They will eat less $4 chicken, or less of some processed corn product, whatever.  But, my grass fed beef could be affected, based on the amount of grass available for my tony cows.  Well, I guess I will pay more.  That is ok, we cancelled Cable.

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