The April, 2011, issue of O, the OPRAH magazine, has an article (with a blurb right on the front cover) on how WELL we can eat for a whole week on just $40 worth of groceries!!! (There's a caveat at the bottom of the article, however. OPRAH (the magazine) says the prices of the ingredients for this full week of swell eating for $40 were in effect 1) at the author's local grocery store and 2) at the time of writing.)
Fair enough. We can scan the shopping list for the week's food and ask questions later.
I'm going to cite a few of the author's grocery prices against what I'd have to pay for the same items at Giant, Safeway, Whole Foods, Glut Coop, Yes! Organic, Trader Joe's, or the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market--all in the DC Metropolitan Area. I don't shop at WalMart or CostCo (no car), but I generally avoid Dean & Deluca, too.
I can't remember all of the items now, and I LOST the list I copied this ayem. But you will get the drift. I DO recall that in no case, at my usual local outlets, was the price, however misremembered, of any item cheaper than its counterpart on the OPRAH list.
Here goes (approx 1/3 of total items) :
OPRAH's list MY list
1 lb. fresh tilapia = $1.00 1 lb. fresh tilapia=$9.95/lb!!!
2 chickens (5 lbs ea.) = $5.35 total 2 chickens, 5 lbs. ea = $10.00
1 doz. eggs = $1.29 1 doz.eggs = $4.50
3 lbs fresh kale = $1.00 total 1 lb. fresh kale = $9.00 total
1 loaf of bread = $1.19 1 loaf of bread = $5.00
1 lb. black beans = $.99 1 lb. black beans = $2.29
Approximate total = $11.82 Approximate total = $40.75
And so it goes. My questions for OPRAH (the magazine) are 1) WHERE does your author live, for pete's sake? Mexico? 2) Just WHEN did the author compose this gem? At the end of the Clinton administration?
Sing it, sister!!!!!! I don't buy a lot of groceries but what I do buy is expensive -- I think -- but not nearly as expensive as yours!!!! I try to shop the specials but it's still a lot more than I used to pay. I think Oprah lives in another galaxy.
ReplyDeleteOprah's list is pretty bogus, but I'll have to say that I haven't seen a loaf of bread for $5 or a dozen eggs for $4.50 anywhere.Kale for $9??? I don't go to Whole Foods anymore EXCEPT for fancy cheese, and that's becoming more & more infrequent. Want to eat for $40 a week? Shop at an Asian store, they're dirt cheap!
ReplyDeleteKay: If we were billionaires, we'd be on another galaxy, too. The prices for food in DC are obscene, but I need to make the same disclaimer: they're what I saw advertised in my area that day. Today, the price of tilapia plummeted to $5.99/lb. at Giant.
ReplyDeleteSally: you're right about the prices, but don't forget i'm afoot, not horseback. And there's food, and then there's food you want to eat.
I get the kale, the bread, and the eggs at the Dupont farmers market on Sunday. One pound of young kale (leaves only) fills a big plastic bag, and though I eat two handfuls every day, it lasts all week. The bread is homemade, and one large loaf again lasts all week. The eggs at $4.50 cost a little more than they do at Whole Foods, and a lot more than they do at Giant or Safeway (today in the 3/18-3/24 Giant circular $1.89/doz for Eggland's Best!), but I like the seller. She's from WV and shows pictures of her hens (Rhode Island Reds). She's always friendly, and the eggs are superb. The bread and kale folks are wonderful, too.
We have some tiny Salvadoran stores just a few blocks away, and I do buy toilet paper, trash bags, dish soap, etc. there--they sell homemade burritos in the late afternoon, too.
"Just WHEN did the author compose this gem? At the end of the Clinton administration?"
ReplyDeletehaha you left the best for last. :)
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ReplyDeleteFood is EXPENSIVE where you live! I'm lucky that I don't have to buy eggs - just chicken feed at £8.00 a bag and that will last more than a month. We had some free potatoes this year. Almost a month's worth - from a neighbour. If I could be bothered, I could get some pheasant, but I'd be the only one to eat it. I grow some stuff in the summer but never enough to make an actual impact on the food bill.
ReplyDeleteChicago prices are like yours - at least for organic food, which I do like to eat. Maybe if the person buying the week's worth for $40 stuck to only what's at rock bottom prices that week, it could be done - but very unlikely. I say, eat organic vegan food - grains, beans, fruits, vegs. Nutritious and cheap if you cook/bake it yourself. But I still live with a carnivore.
ReplyDeleteThe D.N.
peggy....yeah, how do they figger the prices? we pay less for gasoline but more for food than you do.
ReplyDeleteDN: i like organic food, too. at least it tastes good. i dunno if I can eat on $40 a week (well, I can, but not FABULOUSLY). the Oprah list has way too much meat to be affordable. (I left out the london broil). Don't think I can hack vegan food, though i do love fruit and veg, esp trader joe's frozen artichoke hearts! and a big pot of cabbage soup lasts for days. i gotta have me turkey hotdogs! (hahaha...go figure!) and i bought a loaf of bread from WF last week when I missed the farmers market. ish. i have to force myself to eat it.
diana...you're a swell reader!!
ReplyDeleteYour prices are really high, but I think Oprah's list is priced ridiculously low. But of course, I'm in Canada where prices may be different from those in the USA. I always thought of USA as having low priced eggs, milk, sugar etc.
ReplyDeleteI try to feed myself on $200/month, and that includes having family or friends to dinner at least a couple of times a month and also feeding a couple of hungry grandboys when they come to visit..
Glut! That's still around? Isn't that a terrific name for a food store. I'm sure the hens bless you every day...
ReplyDeleteI think you could almost approximate Oprah's list at Costco. But, as you say, you would need a car and you also need a good sized freezer unless you want to eat the same thing every day for weeks. I don't do much "political" shopping, but I try to avoid Walmart and I NEVER would shop at Whole Foods. I guess food prices are highest in the really rich and really poor neighborhoods. The best prices are to be had in the middle class suburbs.
ReplyDeleteI live very close to the Canadian border, and when I go to Costco I see that almost 50% of the cars in the parking lot have Canadian tags. Food is much cheaper here and Canadians come over in droves to shop for food, gas, and everything else.
NDB: Yup, still around. You'd recognize it even now, I'm sure. It was the first and may be one of the last of the old-timey coop groceries.
ReplyDeleteAnne: COSTCO! Bingo! THAT's how the OPRAH list can have those items for such LOW prices! As I said, I don't go there, and it's not just cuz i don't have a car. I don't have room to store all those bulk items. My friend Linda's husband came back from there (or a place like it (shopper's food warehouse?) with 3 packages of raisins, each package weighing 3 lbs! If I were a raisin eater, that would be a lifetime supply.