The True Cost of Cheap Food

A Channel 4 'documentary' last night I use the quotes as you can tell where this is going just by the title - the shock twist was, wait for it, cheaper food such as bargain sausages contain less meat compared to their more expansive cousins; stop the presses!

In one such case a scientist found only 40% protein in a sausage, removed all the connective tissue etc. and replaced it with meat and made it 54% protein at an estimated cost of 0.7p per sausage. Polling the public produced mixed results of those able to tell the difference, but seemed to produce a 100% Yes result when asked "Do you think the supermarkets should take a hit on their profits to make a better sausage", likewise when asked if the supermarkets should give away their food for free to the needy and should the supermarkets provide a valet service and personal shopper for free the answers were also a resounding yes.

Okay I made up those last two questions but seriously duh who wouldn't want the supermarkets to pay the price and not us? Here's the deal if you want more meat in your um meat then you're goign to have to pay for it. If Market A produces a cheapo sausage at Xp and Market B produces a better sausage at Yp and more people buy B's sausage then A will try to produce a B type sausage at X price to get those customers. Okay flaw in the argument is the assumption that people have enough money to be able to choose between A and B, but again if no-one buys B's sausages they'll have to either drop the price or the quality (or both).

This programme's only use was to tell us the difference between the cheap and expensive brands by measuring contents not shown on the packets and even then it was a case of 'more antioxidents in the expensive tomatoes which is better' 'Ah and antioxidents are good for you' 'Yes'. Do I need to go into the contrary health advisories to tell you to be careful of flat statements like that?

So if that was the only use of the programme the only startling thing was the two families of four they'd roped in as an experiment (buy only budget range and don't buy from supermarkets) were trying to reduce their grovery bills to around £95 a week. Reduce! What the hell were they spending before?