Plus there are lots of other things that can and should be cheaper, like health care and rent, which would balance out the cost of food in the average daily budget.
I want some smart internet person or YouTuber to show over ~25 years or so: the rate of inflation, cost increases of housing, healthcare, education, and cost increases of consumer goods like fast food, clothing, eggs, gas, etc. Because it seems like there's a disconnect.
This chart is probably the closest to what both of you are talking about and I feel like it does a pretty good job on its own. I'd like to see it updated. I'll bet cars are way up now relative to its position here, for example.
I've been paying $6.99 for a dozen organic eggs in my bi-monthly farm box for several years. The farm co-op sent a breakdown of costs & how they arrived at that price & I did not disagree. Recently went up to $7.99 to help cover increased food & labor costs. Also fine.
I’ve been buying $7 fresh eggs at the farmer’s market for awhile. The farmers have not raised prices much and soon they will be the cheap eggs — although I have to get there earlier and earlier to get them.
I think the answer to that can be summed up as - Go look and see how people talk about animal cruelty. There's a pretty significant chunk of America at least that really doesn't believe animal cruelty matters at all.
And I'm not a hardcore militant vegan or anything, I just grew up in farm country
I have no idea what my cost breakdown is for feed/mealworms/oystershell/bedding/housing for the ducks. If I did I'd probably buy store eggs and not complain!
I've been paying that much at the farmers market for ages, I had no idea it was unusual and it did not seem unreasonable. it's a lot of eggs and they don't appear by magic🤷♀️
We'd been paying $4-5 for ours - local (williamette valley), free range, humane, vegetarian fed. That's gone up with the avian flu because of the market (no outbreaks here yet).
Yeah, we have been buying independent farm pastured eggs for 15+ years and they have cost 5 or 6 dollars the whole time. Corporate farm subsidies on eggs and milk especially really distort things.
Same here, whenever I've bought eggs at the market for the past several years it's consistently been around $5.50. We're talking price fluctuations of maybe a quarter.
Over here the Good Local Farm eggs are $7/doz and the store brand factory shit is $10/doz and i hope that wee tiny farm is making absolute bank right now
I just think that things that we absolutely need, like farming and food, should not have to be for profit. I think that society as a whole should organize to ensure food access everywhere. Like public schools and libraries ❤️
Like clothing and pretty much everything we use, the true cost has been wildly depressed, and so has everyone's wages.
I often wonder what a better society would look like. Eggs are more expensive and not always available, BUT they are much better quality and animals/workers are happier and safer
the prices we expect necessitate pollution and labor abuse up to and including slavery
hard to get off the treadmill when salaries are set with the expectation of low prices on stuff, the whole system is optimized for horror just out of frame
It would be nice if chicken experts published a blueprint for a family to have backyard chickens, with designated equipment to buy to do it right. If everyone had chickens we wouldn't need industrial egg farmers.
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Many can't because their wages are so low they'd starve.
And I'm not a hardcore militant vegan or anything, I just grew up in farm country
We just eat fewer of them.
How that works is above my paygrade though.
I often wonder what a better society would look like. Eggs are more expensive and not always available, BUT they are much better quality and animals/workers are happier and safer
We had to get 18 eggs last month at the store and that was my first face-to-face interaction with the rabid grocery store egg-folk and WOW
economies of scale getting it to $5 seems about right
all animal protein and products should cost more than americans currently expect to pay
the prices we expect necessitate pollution and labor abuse up to and including slavery
hard to get off the treadmill when salaries are set with the expectation of low prices on stuff, the whole system is optimized for horror just out of frame