Yum Yums and Their Yo Yo-ing Prices

It’s another one of those “Comment got too long to post” posts… I saw an article on the Slashfood site regarding the latest food shortages and surging prices. Of course, I wanted to reply but…Verbosity Fingers just had to keep going long beyond what would have been a succinct comment. So, I bring this to you here, on my blog, out of love and peace and, if you’re nice, a hug.

I don’t even bother to buy most prepackaged foods anymore unless they’re severely on sale. The refrigerated aisle and I haven’t seen each other in two years. Snacks? What? Beyond Salsa (which is soon to be home made itself) and tortilla chips (don’t provoke me), I haven’t really bought much in the way of prepackaged anything unless its something containing vitamins like tomatoes or such. The fresh stuff costs too much nowadays.

We’ve been living on home made veggie burgers and whatever other creative stuff we could come up with that’s affordable since last year. Vegetarian/Vegan recipes have been awesome since, obviously, they don’t involve higher priced things like meat, eggs, and dairy products. The Lentil (and by extension Black Bean) burger recipe was actually inspired by the fact that we didn’t have anything else in the house to eat. Literally. Thankfully, it got us through until my next study payment and I was then able to buy some stuff to last a bit which added to the variety of the legumes. 10 for 10 deals and clearout sales on canned, near sellby date, and prepackaged items as a suppliment have been what’s kept us going over the past few months.

When I do buy, I buy in bulk and from certain merchants that normally keep their prices low like Bulkfoods.com. When I’m not doing that, I’m looking at every frugal website and newsletter (sidebar—>) I’ve come across to find out new deals, specials, and recipes. This is all for basics like flour, lentils, veggies, legumes, etc. It’s not like we’re living on lobster and caviar. I was able to buy oranges on a two bags for the price of one deal for the first time in eight months the other day without it being an economic hardship. I almost died eating them.

This whole thing is ridiculous though. We’ve either got to expand our horizons on what we consider staple foods so we can eat, because there’s a lot out there aside from the main ones in the supermarket, or find some way of getting the prices down so that we can at least afford to eat whats being offered now. I’ve known for years (duh, and you have too probably) that there are a lot of things out there that are edible (More, More, More, and More) but we disregard it all. As I noticed the list of items I was no longer able to buy getting longer, I started really looking into it. There are hundreds of food sources available if we’d use them. Most are actually of an equal to greater nutritive value than what we buy in the supermarkets and, if we can get beyond the fear of the unknown, we might be on to something. Jackfruit anyone? Persimmon perhaps?

Now I’m hungry. Heck, at this rate, I’ll take that Mozzarella no one wants in Italy…Q_Q