Thinking about our food

If we use the excuse that we are far too busy to check labels as we seek out those two-for-one bargains and search for the cheapest deals as we shop for food we are endorsing the cheap-food policies the supermarkets encourage.

Low prices for the consumer — low wages for the producer.

Think about it. Our shopping basket really does make a statement and it’s not always a positive one.

The products we buy to feed our families can say we care about our loved ones, the food producers and the environment or suggest we simply don’t bother about anything except our own desperate need to get the shopping done as quickly as possible.

Pick up a cheap carton of eggs and we are saying yes to the wretched conditions in which battery hens are kept.

Pick up a bargain ready-to-cook chicken that costs half the price of a free-range variety and we are also saying yes to the battery hen’s plight.

We ignore the black bruises on its legs caused by the cramped conditions in which the poor creature eked out its few pitiful months, and cheerfully feed its soft white puffy flesh to our families with little (if any) regard for the chemicals that were pumped into the poor creature to keep it alive.

By reaching for a free-range chicken that costs twice as much our purse will be lighter, but we will have made a positive statement that benefits both chicken and those we feed.

After all, there’s usually something in the shopping trolley we can do without to make up the difference, be it a glossy magazine, a tub of ice cream or that extra packet of biscuits.

Money can also be saved by thinking twice when buying those little extras to complete the meal. The packet of stuffing mix for instance, which can so easily be made at home from a little stale bread that would have otherwise been thrown away. Even the instant gravy granules aren’t necessary once you learn to create your own gravy from the meat juices left in the pan.

Then there are those fancy bags of salad leaves.  Next time you shop take a moment to weigh a real lettuce and you will find that those trendy assortments of leaves, kept fresh by artificial means are costing double that of a whole lettuce. And, if you purchase a lettuce at a farm shop or a Farmers Market you can be confident that it’s really fresh and has not flown thousands of miles to get here having been grown in an Italian polytunnel.

You may feel smug about picking up some of those two-for-one items but who do you think pays the real price for your bargain – it’s certainly not the supermarkets. It’s the producer who is being squeezed into offering this bargain in the vain promise that this promotion will pay for itself in the end.  It doesn’t of course. Most shoppers are hungry for bargains - not quality foods. When that offer ends, shoppers simply seek out the next one. Any memory of the previous offer is forgotten in the rush to pack away yet another supermarket shop.

Then there are the bananas, the chocolate, cocoa powder and coffee. Gravitating towards a known brand is so easy, why bother to seek out Fairtrade goods?

Actually, it really is worth the bother and the time.  Every Fairtrade item purchased makes a positive impact on the life of a farmer somewhere in the Third World struggling to send their children to school.

All we have to do is spend a few extra minutes checking the goods we buy and we will have made a real difference to both the Fairtrade producers and our own farmers who struggle against great odds to make ends meet.
Next time you pick up a bargain just ask yourself who is paying the real price – the producers, the animals, the environment or you.

Perhaps that will be enough to motivate you to think twice about real food.

Helen Peacocke is food writer for The Oxford Times