Thoughts on Consumption and Eating Habits

This weekend I briefly spoke with my grandmother about eating habits. She asked whether I cooked much. I explained how although I like to cook, cooking for one is quite a lot of work - going to the store, cooking, and cleaning up after. In some ways it is more efficient just to get take out. She completely agreed.

I don't know how my grandmother and aunt eat on a day to day basis, but they minimize the work. All their dishes go into the dishwasher. They try not to make or buy more than they eat. And they are incredibly efficient when it comes to feeding a large group of seven total visitors. On the first night, she made a nice salad, a ham, a sweet potato dish, and asparagus. We ate everything except about 1/2 of the ham and 1/2 the sweet potato dish.

For lunch the next day, we ate ham sandwiches with fruit and chips.

For dinner that night, we ate steak, a salad, roast veggies, and leftover sweet potato dish.

For breakfast the next day we used the final bits of ham to make omelette's with cheese and tomatoes.

For lunch the next day, we make leftover steak sandwiches.

Overall, I would guess we fed seven people eating nice round, healthy, tasty meals over the entire weekend for under $150. It wasn't luxury by any stretch, granted. But it was certainly not skimping either.

I realized they approach meals a bit differently than I approach meals. Rather than thinking "what do I want to eat," as I do every day, they think, "what do I have to eat." I don't know if this is a generational thing (depression vs. gen x/y), a regional thing (west coast vs. midwest), an age thing (93 vs. 30), an income thing (some type of fixed income vs. salary with presumably bright future), an access to food thing (suburbs vs. cities with easier food access), but whatever core reason for the difference, we approach eating differently.

I know I am not going drastically change how I eat - nor do I want to. I keep it pretty reasonable and I like my food, have access to the good stuff, so I figure why not try to live right? But...this week I did take a bit of a cue from grandmother...I went to the grocery store after work on Monday and instead of buying food for dinner that night and maybe bfast the next day, I got some pasta and sauce and cereal and fruit and veggies and milk and snacks for the week. The whole thing only cost me $20. And tonight, although I wanted Mediterranean take out after my soccer game, I knew I had pasta and broccoli at home waiting. So far, I've eaten two dinners and one bfast and I figure I have two more bfasts and one more dinner (not to mention snacks) from all the food I bought. I calculate I will get a total of three dinners (take out costs around $10) and three bfasts ($3-4 average cost) for a total of $20 this week. By that calculation, I cut my cost in half.

I know the rest of the week will not be as impressive since time and plans come into factor. But I think the early week and the weekend bfasts can start being about what I have in the fridge more than what I "feel" like eating. It's not really about saving money, because to be honest, these costs are pretty nominal. I think it's more about a philosophical approach to consumption. Eat what's in the fridge and don't let food go bad vs. eating what I feel like all the time. I do too much of the later.

I know I can't do anything about the financial crisis, but have a gut instinct all this stuff is rooted in a basic principal - individuals becoming habituated to consuming more than they create. Buying whatever they want. Refusing to utter the phrase "I can't afford it." On a financial level it is simple - spend less than you make. It took a whole hell of a lot of people not abiding by this principal to get us where we are. Maybe if we all ate what was in the fridge, things would be different.