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And they asked for a tip at the self-checkout station!
Don’t forget the shrinkflation. Many, many, many products are now smaller or lesser in quantity than they used to be.
Don’t worry, they have BRAND NEW PACKAGING to try and distract you while a few (or dozen) grams get shaved off the total weight posted
God forbid you want to eat beef
Soon all we will be able to afford is long pork.
I think the orcas have been telling us who to butcher for that first
I’ve been getting ludicrously short shelf life on some produce in the past year or so. Get a bag of carrots Thursday after work, there’s mold by Saturday. I don’t think that was common three years ago.
The last scraps of the warehouses are being empyied out.
Also with labor shortages even the product that gets harvested ends up languishing in poor storage at various stages before it reaches the store. Instead of a quick pickup with a refigerated semi, you’re getting vans a few hours late. The boxes sit in the field for longer, etc. (Anecdote from a berry farm in my area.)
I’ve noticed that too
Put some paper towel in with them. It’ll help reduce the moisture and give you an extra few days.
I don’t eat ground beef but the people i cook for do. I could not figure out wtf was wrong with the regular grocery store ground beef, no matter how i cooked it it was coming out weird; very dense and chewy no matter how it was cooked. Also if you ever get that weird whiff of ammonia from beef i thought it was just spoiled.
Then I learned that Pink Slime didn’t go away, they just changed the laws so they could add up to a certain percentage of pink slime to ground beef without identifying it. I believe it’s up to 15% where i live. Suddenly the quality difference between the store ground beef and the next price tier makes a lot of sense. Also the ammonia smell as it’s part of the processing. Fucking vile what american governments allow capitalists to get away with at our expense.
I told the folks who eat it and they just said okay buy the more expensive stuff then. Trying to use the experience to nudge them towards plant based alternatives but it’s an uphill battle.
Then I learned that Pink Slime didn’t go away, they just changed the laws so they could add up to a certain percentage of pink slime to ground beef without identifying it. I believe it’s up to 15% where i live. Suddenly the quality difference between the store ground beef and the next price tier makes a lot of sense. Also the ammonia smell as it’s part of the processing. Fucking vile what american governments allow capitalists to get away with at our expense.
This is like when the cacao content of Hershey’s chocolate dipped so low that they were going to be legally forced to call it “chocolate flavored bar”. Did they alter the recipe? No, they just had the laws changed so they’re still considered chocolate.
It’s like how people were really against Obamacare but loved the Affordable Care Act. All you need is a bit of a label change and the public falls in line. The public has an attention span of about 2 weeks and rarely ever follows up, so they are really easy to fool.
This is one of the reasons the new administration loves to cut education budgets. Stupider people are easier to govern.
I’ve been buying bison or free roam beef lately. The cheap beef we used to get is always sold out. Actually, I like this stuff better. Way less greasy.
I cannot recommend enough just getting a big ol bag of vital wheat gluten for this reason.
I use essentially this recipe to replace everything I would normally use hamburger, sausage, etc. for. It’s so quick and easy! Simply replacing the seasonings/ketchup with various other seasonings/sauces as if they were the marinade (ie a hamburger uses paprika, beef bouillon, poultry seasoning, onion/garlic and worcestershire) allows for endless variation and different kinds of “meats”.
If making patties, meatballs, etc., let the dough rest ~15min. then get it a little damp before forming and cooking.
Adding in a bit of normal cooking flour, chickpea flour, malt, etc. allows for adjusting the texture as desired.
Very quick and easy to whip up, no more ammonia smell, perfectly marinated flavor every time, and consistent texture with absolutely no gristle.
I was told im not spending more. So I guess im not?
Edit: 2.79 for a small fry btw
And hey, we’re also way more likely to get sick from the products, and then we can pay even more at the hospital (if they’re still open in rural American in a couple of years). Capitalism at work, folks.
Akchually according to this chart you’re better off now, so stop complaining, you’re fine. /s
I love picking up packages and seeing 90 grams, 450 grams etc. That’s how you really know that the quarterly doubling prices and shrinkflation go hand in hand :3
And it’s not just package sizes! I used to drink those Naked Juice smoothies, because they were all thick and creamy, with the main ingredients being blended bananas and strawberries.
Then a little while ago I noticed they weren’t thick and creamy anymore. They were super thin and watery. At first I thought maybe I just got a bad batch, but eventually realized that was the new normal. I checked the ingredients list, and sure enough, apple juice is now the primary ingredient.
I checked the ingredients list, and sure enough, apple juice is now the primary ingredient.
Bummer, I haven’t had a Naked in awhile now but I used to love them.
Yeah they’re nothing like they used to be. I don’t bother with them anymore.
I also like that they no longer align with typically required measurements for recipes. Nothing gets me off more than having to calculate fractions for amounts of ingredients.
Thankfully it hasn’t caused many issues to me personally :3
Usually the differences are small enough that they don’t change the consistency or the taste to a significant level, at least in the shrinkflation I’ve seen where I live
I am probably too pedantic for that. If the recipe says 500g of this with 250g of that, it’s typically a good 2:1 mix and the packaging sizes often aligned. Now you have shit like 400g and 220g and you can’t easily align them anymore. Realistically it probably won’t matter even if it’s not a nearly perfect 2:1 mix either. But … I can’t help myself :D
That doesn’t work for me because part of the issue is the number of servings I get at the end and the size of the cooking container. Example: random veggie casserole calls for 1 pound frozen broccoli, 1 pound frozen caulflower, 1 medium onion, 3 stalks celery, and a bunch of other stuff (rice, cheese, spices, breadcrumbs, etc.).
Frozen veg is now mostly bagged at 3/4 of a pound instead of a full pound (same with certain pasta). While I can theoretically use 1.5 bags or reduce other measures by 25%, I don’t want a bunch of half-bags in the freezer – and if I make a casserole that’s 75% the size… well, I don’t have a 75% sized casserole dish so it still has to bake in the dish I’ve used to decades, but now as a sad thin version of what it ought to be – and it typically dries out while cooking (if I don’t try to fix it).
That’s the “pedantic” part that also gets me, but realistically it doesn’t really work out anyway, because the “servings” are individual sizes. I can’t really calculate exactly how much everyone is going to eat. So even if the recipe turns out the exact amount it intended, it could still be too much or not enough, simple because someone is more or less hungry than usual / expected.
I like having reproducible results, but practically with food it just doesn’t happen perfectly, even if I actually measure everything perfectly (amounts, time, etc.)
Fair :3
I just can’t be bothered to go dig out more ingredients if a recipe says 400g of butter and the packages are 180g each or smth lol
Y’all remember how big rice crispy treats used to be?
And they aren’t gooey anymore
Grocery value didn’t go up. Real wages went down. We should measure inflation based on cost-of-living.
Groceries don’t really get more expensive, because the methods for producing food don’t really get less efficient over time; if anything, it’s more efficient. So there’s no real reason for them to become more expensive.
Instead, wages declined. I’ve already commented many times that the labor market is a free market, that means it’s regulated by Supply and Demand. I.e., if prices for labor go down, as we can observe, then that can be interpreted such that supply of labor went up (women go to work too, offshoring labor to other countries, immigrants, …) or that demand for labor went down (automation, end of growth, …).
I honestly think that both cases are difficult, where the supply of labor could be a bit reduced by kicking out immigrants and home-shoring labor (and also, to a lesser extent, making it more difficult for women to work), which btw some advisers to trump are seemingly trying to do, but my honest opinion is that it won’t bring wages up to how they were in the 1960s. Demand for labor is shrinking too, due to the end of growth and now AI and other automation techniques. I guess we’ll have to face that.
edit: just to offer an optimistic outlook, i think that consumerism and therefore demand for consumer products could be stimulated by simply giving handouts to people. most people will spend most of the handouts immediately, and that stimulates consumerism. and that in turn stimulates the economy.
Groceries don’t really get more expensive, because the methods for producing food don’t really get less efficient over time; if anything, it’s more efficient. So there’s no real reason for them to become more expensive.
While I’m with you on the economic theory, the past 5 years proved that theory out the window. Yes, there were shortages and logistical issues that caused price spikes, but many grocery items never came back down, or have been held at artificially higher prices since. S&D postulates that when there are a higher number of units on the market, prices will drop. But when you have the corporate consolidation that we’ve seen in America where there are fewer producers (especially in name brand goods, aka one producer) as well as fewer retailers, the models don’t work as they would if we were in a pure free market where producers and retailers can enter the market at any time. As such, those fewer producers and retailers can hold prices artificially higher as their businesses are scaled out (nevermind that the likes of Kroger, the largest grocer in the country, has posted record profits in recent years, as have many entities that make up the core components of the CPI), and they can leverage market position to make entering the market untenable for an upstart.
And the problem with handouts is that they come from the govt, where the treasury prints money, thereby reducing the value of the existing money supply and increasing costs on goods as suppliers and retailers raise prices because of the increased money supply, aka modern inflation.
And the problem with handouts is that they come from the govt, where the treasury prints money, thereby reducing the value of the existing money supply and increasing costs on goods as suppliers and retailers raise prices because of the increased money supply, aka modern inflation.
Yep that’s why we need a wealth tax sothat the government doesn’t go into more debt.
Housing, food, energy, education, and vehicles have all massively accelerated in cost while wages stay the same. We’re plummeting toward a crash in the US.
Is it really a crash if 1% of the US feel absolutely no ill effects? After all they are the ones writing the headlines, not us plebs who are usually just bickering with each other over scraps.
They’re just hoping Elysium becomes a thing sooner than later.
luckily you also get less of them for the increased price
“Waiter! This food is terrible! And the portions are so small.”
Sam’s club has sold me rotten meat twice so far this year
I’m glad that I picked up cooking during Covid. I don’t really eat out anymore or buy junk food. So I just have to deal with higher grocery prices… to supplement the rich.
