The Cost of Cheap Food

[izmeina]

Snaffled this poster from a permaculture newsletter

I think of this every time I see those one dollar litres of milk in Coles or Woolies. Some one's got to subsidize such a price and I bet it's the cows who pay the real cost.

Comments

[ozfille]

The 83 cents sliced bread from Woolies is even worse. At least milk as some nutritional value, I'm not sure the sliced white bread is of much value. But then considering the poverty wage of those on any form of social security pensions, it's probably most they can afford.

[izmeina]

IGA has $1.99 sandwich loaves that looks very ordinary. The Woolies 83 cent offerings must be truly abysmal. Never set eyes on the stuff let alone tasted it. I bet there's bucket loads of sugar, monsatan soya beans and corn syrup in it.
I must say I am rather partial to the Big C's 'freshly baked in store' frozen bread all the way from Ireland. It's probably still coming from there.

Last Sunday at that school fete they were selling off bags of burger buns for $2 at the end of the day. I knew they cost $4-5 in Coles and had nostalgic memories of old school tuck shop days where I would get 2 peanut butter rolls for the price of the one salad roll I was supposed to be getting. It wasn't just the peanut butter that was the attraction but twice as many sesame seeds and the Izzie would nibble every single one of the tasty little critters.

These buns were not crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside and the sesame seeds on top were the only thing they had in common with those bread rolls from memory. They were bland, boring and almost tasteless. Worst of all they were sweet. Sugar and salt are not the precious commodities they used to be. More is the pity.

Coles had so called organic drinking chocolate on special this week. Was nearly tempted until reading the small print. There are two ingredients and the second one is cocoa. I don't care if it's free trade organically grown sustainable raw cane sugar. It's still sugar and still disgusting. You see I have a fat tooth rather than a sweet tooth.

I did not see the 4 corners story about the backpackers slaves picking tomatoes but heard all about it. It's crazy. Not even in the USA, the home of so called free enterprise are two companies allowed to have such a monstrous market share.

It's only when you try grow your own vegies or bake your own cakes and bread that you get some idea of what the going price should be.

Did you ever see this seriously scary movie about the real price of cheap food? It's scarier than any Hollywood slasher.
If it's in the USA today, it will be in Oz tomorrow. Especially now that we've signed all those dodgy so called 'free trade' agreements.