It All Starts with Spam
I have been pondering on and writing about the alarming rise in grocery prices for months now. My grocery bill and my gasoline costs are taking over my budget.
So, when I saw a headline proclaiming that sales of Spam are up due to consumers looking for less expensive ways to fill out their cupboards, I was…well, I’m not sure what I was, but I stopped to read the story.
When I was a child, in the 70s, Spam was around quite a bit. We did not actually eat it all that often in my household, but when I would spend the night at my friend Carol’s house, one of the biggest treats was when her mom would make us slices of friend spam along with buttered noodles for dinner. For me, Spam was right up there with Vienna Sausages as those mysterious foods I only got on what seemed like special occasion. Little did I know my parents just did not share my love for processed meats and served them seldom to avoid having to eat them.
Spam has been around since 1937 and due to amazing increase in sales this year; Hormel is planning the first national advertising campaign for Spam in years. They are even going to roll out new Spam products, like individually wrapped slices.
Overall food prices are up 4% since last year. White bread is up 13%, bacon is up 7%, and peanut butter is up %. And, if food prices keep going up like they are right now, it will mean that 2008 will see an overall increase of 6.1%.
My mother is a child of WW2 and her parents grew up in the Great Depression. I admit that my daily household habits are much more wasteful than what I have been taught by my family and I need to take a step back and implement what I have been taught. Meals can indeed be made for just a couple of dollars. I can put in a bigger garden, can fruits an veggies, save more cans and jars and bags, re-use foil, eat is restaurants a lot less often, and hundreds of other things.
It all startds with Spam, but it marches onward from there.
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