Organic food is cheapest when bought direct from a farmer or producer, either via a box scheme, or at markets and farm shops. This sort of organic food will often cost less than the non-organic equivalent. But because most organic food costs more to produce and doesn’t come direct from the producer, it will tend to be more expensive than the basic non-organic equivalent. That said, it may sometimes cost less than premium non-organic products, so don’t always assume that organic will automatically be more expensive. Every now and then, compare like with like. You may get a pleasant surprise.
If you have to watch what you spend, and would like to buy more organic food but can’t see how to afford it, then you can prioritize your purchases. There are stronger arguments for some organic foods than others. It is more important to spend money on organic pork or chicken, for instance, than it is to buy organic lamb or beef.
The extra you will have to pay for some organic products is more manageable than for others. Items such as organic flour, milk, bread and butter can be quite affordable, as can fresh seasonal products, such as salad leaves and herbs. If you do compare prices, you may actually find that many organic brands are cheaper than their conventional equivalents and are often on special offer. Throughout this book, the foods that you might want to prioritize for organic purchases are flagged up.
Support small-scale producers and independent shops and food outlets
Supermarket chains’ commitment to small-scale foods and producers is skin-deep. At a structural level, these dinosaurs of food retailing are locked into bulk buying, globalized sourcing and centralized distribution, which favour the large supplier every time. Supermarkets just aren’t equipped to respond to fleeting availability or to handle foods that are produced in small numbers, even if they truly wanted to. What this means is that if everyone keeps shopping only in supermarkets, many of our smaller-scale foods will disappear because supermarkets do not deem them reliable, consistent or significant enough in turnover terms to merit stocking them.
If you love interesting foods, and want to ensure that you will always have real diversity in your shopping basket – items such as rare-breed meat, traditional fruits, distinctive local specialities with a sense of place, more unusual varieties of fruits and vegetables that keep precious biodiversity alive, artisan farmhouse cheese and naturally grown produce that haven’t been groomed to fit the big chains’ body fascist cosmetic grading requirements – then make a conscious effort to do some of your shopping in alternative outlets like markets, farm shops and independent shops. By shopping this way, you lend your valuable support to producers who are maintaining our food traditions and heritage and people who are offering something refreshingly different to the cloned supermarket offer. You also help keep your locality alive and more vibrant with shopping outlets that offer an alternative to the homogeneity and sameness of the over-dominant retail chains.
Recalibrate your attitude towards the cost of food
There’s lots of ‘cheap’ food on offer. Well, cheap that is, as long as you ignore its less obvious costs, such as its impact on your health, the misery of farm animals, the poor pay and conditions endured by workers in the global food industry, and environmental damage. Like clocking up debits on an out-of-control credit card, cheap food is stacking up a debt that we will have to pay at some future point.
Many people would like to buy something better, but feel that cheap, mass-produced food is the only type they can afford. More wholesomely and ethically produced food has a reputation for being expensive food, even though it usually represents much better value for money.
But there are a number of strategies that you can employ to keep down your overall spend, yet still eat higher-quality, more ethical food, simply by readjusting and rethinking certain strands in your diet. If, for instance, you cut out expensive, ready-made food, such as lunchtime sandwiches, pricey ready meals and pre-washed vegetables, you can free up a surprising amount of money to spend on something else: a free-range or organic chicken, say, instead of a factory-farmed one. By reducing the amount of meat you eat, choosing the less expensive, but arguably more delicious cuts, and bumping up the proportion of vegetables in your diet, you can afford to eat better meat and still be quids in. If you plan your meals in advance, you will almost certainly waste less and the money saved can go towards buying better ingredients. And of course, if you cut out sweet drinks, squashes, sodas and bottled water, and make tap water your default thirst-quencher, then you will instantly be awash with money that allows you to trade up on something else you regularly eat: a nicer hand-made cheese, some Fairtrade bananas, a special olive oil for salads. Throughout this book, ways to improve the quality of what you eat without spending more money overall are flagged up.
Save money outside the supermarket
Never assume that supermarkets are the cheapest place to shop. They most certainly are if what you want is processed food, say a bumper pack of crisps or a two-for-one offer on fizzy drinks. No corner shop or indie outlet can beat them on that stuff. They also offer bargain-basement prices on the handful of ‘known value items’ – such as bananas, milk and white bread. They price these products at an unrealistically low level to surround everything else they sell with a halo of value and convince us that they are cheaper than their competitors. But there’s one very important thing to understand about supermarkets: they aren’t cheaper places to shop for fresh, unprocessed foods. You will routinely pay more for fish, meat, fruit and vegetables in supermarkets than you will at the fishmonger’s, the butcher’s or the greengrocer’s. On some products, the mark-ups charged by supermarkets are astronomical. Try comparing supermarket spice prices with those in your average Asian grocery store. Or check out the cost of supermarket lemongrass, spring onions or fish sauce against the Chinese supermarket. Supermarkets routinely charge eye-popping premiums on any food that isn’t mass-market or industrialized. If you are looking for real fresh food, then take your business elsewhere.
Don’t become an ideological eater
A number of different considerations now influence us when we are deciding what we eat. This is a positive trend. What’s clever about swallowing mystery food without giving any thought to what it may be doing to you, food producers and the planet? But while some understanding of these concerns can undoubtedly inform and influence your choice of food, it is important not to become over-cerebral and to remember that, first and foremost, food should be a life-enhancing pleasure.
There’s no need, for instance, to cut out meat from your diet entirely just because you are worried about the depletion of the rainforest or the conditions of farm animals. Many species of fish are below safe biological limits, but don’t draw the conclusion that there is no fish left in the sea that you can eat. Nor is there any necessity to commit to eating only politically correct, right-on food. People who seriously suggest this are driven by ideological goals and you can’t assume that they have any inherent love for, or great understanding of, food. Similarly, it’s spirit-crushing and life-denying to sign up for an extremely limiting diet of 100 per cent healthy food. It’s only human, every now and then, to eat things you know aren’t that great, just because you like them.
It’s good to be a thoughtful eater, but if you are excessively ideological in choosing what you eat, it’s too easy to become neurotic and end up with a rapidly diminishing list of food you are prepared to eat. Instead, just try to head in the right general direction, but don’t make a fetish of it. Be led by the stomach as well as the head. Eating well can seem complicated, but, actually, it’s simple.
10 ways
to save money on
food without compromising
your principles
As your till receipts will testify, the cost of food has climbed alarmingly of late. And it looks as if higher food bills are here to stay, not just for years, but for decades. A series of global factors – climate change, a growing world population, shortage of oil, market speculation and a weak pound – are combining to drive up the price of food. The underlying trend is that food prices will continue to rise in real terms for the next 30 years. So we have moved into a period when food will become a much more significant item in the household budget.
It’s wearing having to worry constantly