It’s interesting what a slow economy will lead some people (and businesses) to do. Surveys have been showing that people are eating more Spam and lower-quality meats, as well as choosing more store brand products or shopping at lower-end stores like Aldi and Save-a-Lot, to make their grocery budgets go further.

Whole Foods tries to shed “Whole Paycheck” reputation

So what do you do if your company is built on providing customers expensive, even luxury, food items? If you’re Whole Foods, you get workers to conduct tours of the store highlighting less expensive options, like tofu and beans, rather than the $20 a pound fresh tuna. You also have more sale items and let customers know about foods that are more of a bargain.

Whole Foods will never be considered an inexpensive place to shop, and these overtures to bargain hunters might not be working that well, as one woman who took part in a tour said shopping at the store would only be cheap if “you were a vegetarian willing to eat beans and tofu.”

Beans are for meat eaters, too

There are a couple of problems with that statement. First, most vegetarians (unless they live on cheese and carbs) are more than willing to eat beans and tofu, they’re the cornerstones of their diets.

Further, as the good folks at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity point out, this statement implies that only vegetarians eat beans and tofu, meat eaters, well, eat meat. They note that the increase in Spam consumption is one way this meat eaters eat meat idea is playing out.

People are choosing to eat lower-quality meat so they can have any meat at all rather than picking meat-free proteins such as tofu and beans. It seems many meaty Americans consider eating meat one or two times a day their birthright, rather than something that really just came on the scene in the past 50 years or so.

We’d probably all be better off if people didn’t think in such strict ways about people who eat meat and people who don’t. Instead of requiring some kind of meat (even the sort of scary meat product that is Spam), choosing to have a meal that has no meat even just once or twice a week would lower food costs, not to mention cholesterol and fat intake.

And choosing to go veg for a few meals may also put less of a toll on the environment, since vegetables are less resource intensive than meat (especially if you choose organic produce). So eating less meat is cheaper and healthier, for people and the planet, and it can actually taste good, too. It’s a win-win-win.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 and is filed under Food miscellaneous, Vegetarian and vegan diet. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Permalink.