Food prices

In Skypeland discussions, it is clear that many in some parts of the world do not eat as well as people in other places. Of course, one might expect this when a Skypeland visitor is from the Third World. However, it can be startling to realize how poorly some people from Western Countries eat as well.

Of course, many have atrocious diets by choice, but a disturbing aspect that emerges is that good food is not uniformly readily available in many Western countries, or it is prohibitively expensive. One of the most common complaints is that "junk food" is more expensive than fresh fruits and vegetables in many areas. Of course this is troubling, but it can be interesting to compare current food prices in the US (taken from the fairly high end supermarket Giant Foods) and the UK [1] [2] and other places to shed some more light on this issue:

*Bananas are roughly 0.58$/pound in the US, and about 0.63$/pound in the UK. These are not produced in the US, but they are still about 10% cheaper in the US than in the UK. Often bananas in Germany, France and Japan are at least 50% more than they are in the US and are sometimes even double the American prices. [3] (I just found bananas at 0.50$/pound at a US grocery).

*Apples are 1.00$/pound in the US and about 1.07$/pound in the UK. Again, the prices are close, with US prices being a few percent less than UK prices. There is some variation depending on the type of apples compared.

*Vidalia onions are 1.00$/pound in the US compared with sweet onions costing 2.45$/pound in the UK. This is a dramatic difference, but regular onions are about the same price in the two countries. I have since found Vidalia onions for about 0.95$ a pound in a US store.

*Hamburger meat in the UK is about 3.12$/pound and about 3.00$/ pound in the US, which is only slightly less. Anyone who has compared the taste of these will quickly realize there is a substantial quality difference between them, however.

*Potatoes in the US are about 0.80$/pound and 0.58$/pound in the UK, perhaps contributing to their popularity in UK diets.

*A dozen medium size free range eggs in the UK are 4.25$ and a dozen large size free range eggs in the US are 3.39$. The cheapest eggs I could find at the UK supermarket Ocado are about 0.31$/egg and the cheapest eggs are 0.16$/egg at US supermarket Giant Foods. I know I could find much cheaper eggs at other less expensive US grocery stores (for example, just after I wrote this, I found eggs at another US grocery store priced at 0.14$/egg. I then found another US store that is selling organic eggs at 0.0825$/egg.).

*Six salad tomatoes in the US are 0.48$, and six salad tomatoes in the UK are 1.48$. This is a surprisingly large difference.

*A gallon of milk in the UK is 4.11$ and a gallon of milk is 3.49$ in the US (A few days later, I found milk for sale for 3.09$ a gallon in the US at another store. I am pretty sure I could find it even cheaper if I kept looking, however. For example, a few days later I found it for 2.26$ a gallon at a US discount outlet.).

*Skippy peanut butter in the US is 0.14$/ounce and is 0.23$/ounce in the UK.

So obviously, some food prices are somewhat close in different countries, but in other cases, US food is far less expensive. Of course, as a fraction of aftertax income, the US prices are even lower. In 2006, Americans spent about 5.8% of their incomes on food, and British spent about 8.8% of their much lower incomes on food. [4] That is, the British spent 50% more of their incomes on food than Americans. However, there is not a lot of variety in the British diet; they eat 4 times as many potatoes per capita as the healthy-eating Italians for example. [5]

British food prices are increasing very rapidly as well. British food prices are rising at 4 times the rate of the rest of Europe. [6]

One of the most well-known indices of living standards is the "Big Mac Index". This tries to gauge the relative values of different currencies based on the price of a Big Mac in local McDonald's restaurants. For example, in February of 2009, the average price of a Big Mac in the US was $3.54 and was $3.30 in the UK. [7] However, incomes are much lower in the UK than they are in the US, particularly aftertax incomes. Therefore, in terms of the average amount of time working that is required to buy a Big Mac, the US is well ahead of the UK on the UBS Wealth Management variant of the Big Mac Index. [8]

In light of this, is it any wonder that some of the visitors to Skypeland from the UK are struggling to eat properly?