The real cost of food [moved from Boston board]

[FinnFPM]

[We've moved this discussion, which began as a response to http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/7022... from the Boston board. -- THE CHOWHOUND TEAM]

Again, this isn't simple a matter of flavors, it's a matter of where your money is going. When you buy Jeni's, you're supporting many players in the Ohio sustainable agriculture scene, and you are voting for grass-fed, free-range dairy. When you go to Toscanini's (for example), you are supporting H.P. Hood. You're also supporting the people that make the ice cream, but your money trail -- and impact trail -- is significantly longer than that. I'm not sure why everyone is ignoring this aspect of the money question.

[FoodDabbler]

I think that striperguy is correct in his assessment of the costs of producing icecream. Take salty caramel as an example. A pint of good cream from a happy, grass-fed cow costs about $5 retail (on average -- raw costs more, and the hideous ultra-pasteurized costs less), two eggs from ecstatic, free-range chickens about $1 retail, and decent sugar and salt about $0.50. That's half the price of Jeni's salty caramel. I know that they have to make the ice cream, store it, and transport it, but many of these costs are built into the retail prices that I quote. Also, while local places such as Christina's, Toscanini's, etc., may not be particularly "organic", the other example I quoted, il laboratorio del gelato from New York, does make an effort to source its ingredients from small, organic, local farms. And they manage to charge $8/pint. (Although I admit that their ice cream pints are not signed by the particular cow that gave its milk so that we might indulge.)

Making good food affordable is a thorny problem. It's akin to the problem modernistic designers from the 1950s -- the Eameses and co. -- faced. They wanted to use commonplace materials (plywood and such) to make well-designed, mass-produced furniture for "the masses". Instead, all they ended up doing was to produce a few iconic items that sold at outrageous prices at the time and continue to do so today. Utopia, it would appear, comes at a price.

Here, as an example of the problem involved, is the cost breakdown of a somewhat locavore dinner for five that I cooked in New York a few weeks ago. I shopped at the Union Square greenmarket with the aim of making for dinner only what I could get there. Eventually I cheated a bit and used olive oil, salt, red pepper flakes, and lemons from elsewhere. Everything else was local.

Starters:
Three cheeses from the excellent Cato's Corner dairy, including the wonderful, slightly stinky Hooligan: $20
(This is an estimate. I bought a full wheel of Hooligan for about $25, but we ate only about a third of it, so I put the cost of that cheese at $8.)
Breads from local bakeries (a baguette, half a loaf of onion rye, half a loaf of olive): $12

Main meal:
1) Shallow-fried banana-potatoes (cut in half lengthwise) with whole cloves of garlic and sea salt. The garlic was from last fall, stored over the winter, but it was from a local farm: $6
2) A stir-fry of thin strands of fresh horseradish ($3) with ramps ($3): $6
3) Flounder from Long Island poached in olive oil on low heat with thin slices of garlic and red pepper flakes, and served with lemon squeezed over it and sea salt sprinkled over: $23
4) Spicy lamb sausage from a local farm: $13
5) Salad of baby lettuces and sunflower greens ($17) with edible flowers ($5) and thin radish shoots ($4): $26

TOTALS:
Starters: $32
Main meal: $74
Olive oil, salt, etc.: $3 (estimate).

Cheaper than eating out, but expensive for homecooked food. The cheeses were a frill, and we could have had less fish (but would have needed more meat). The salad greens were the item whose price seemed highest to me. This is not something most people would be able to afford as a normal dinner.

[StriperGuy]

Do keep in mind that any ice cream maker is adding one key ingredient which is rather inexpensive (though is sounds like Jeni's is rather dense and fudge-like) air. Even the densest ice cream is 20% air. Also they are not paying retail prices. Even the finest Ivy League cows might sell their free-range cream at a bit less then $5 a pint wholesale.

For the meal above if you had bought your bread at Iggy's, gone light ($8) on the cheese, caught the fish yourself (couldn't resist, with my chow screen name) and skipped the lamb, you would have had an affordable local meal.

[FoodDabbler]

If you, StriperGuy, team up with GoatGirl and The Greens Lantern, you could eat an entire meal for free. Add the Human Blowtorch and you'll even have crème brûlée for dessert.

[StriperGuy]

LOL.

[beevod]

You should run for Congress

[FoodDabbler]

It's a matter, I think, of what your primary purpose is. If it's to enjoy ice cream, then the flavors, value, etc., are important. Where the money goes is of secondary importance, as long as it's not going to something positively vile. If your primary goal is to support sustainable agriculture, then perhaps you should directly send a cheque to the grass-fed, free-range dairy that Jenni gets its milk from. Or, for a win-win solution, buy Toscanni's and send the difference to the dairy.

I'm really all for supporting small farms, etc. But the primary factor for me when it comes to food is the taste and the value, not the cause. Just as when I buy a book the *primary* factor is what's in it, not whether the paper comes from sustainably harvested trees.

[FinnFPM]

I'd never argue that it's not a matter of what your "primary purpose" (to use your term) is, as far as your purchases are concerned -- you are the consumer, and these are your dollars, so it's certainly 100% about what you want to spend your money on. But the prices are set at least partially based on the inputs, so it's worthwhile to say that in instances like this, that $13 pint is not entirely based on propping up Jeni's as an elite brand.

It's your definition of "enjoy" that is probably too simple here. When I buy ice cream, my primary purpose is absolutely to enjoy that ice cream. But for some people -- and this is what you might be ignoring -- "enjoyment" goes beyond flavor and your short-term dollar value. If I didn't really want the ice cream, and mostly wanted to support the farm, I'd be better off writing a check. You're correct. But I can also do both: support small farms, and enjoy ice cream. I can't enjoy my ice cream, then, if I know that small farmers -- and cows -- are getting screwed so that I can eat that ice cream for cheaper.

I'm not saying what you should or shouldn't do. But this turned into a conversation about the cost of Jeni's versus the cost of other ice cream options, and I felt that the determinants of that cost were being largely ignored.

[StriperGuy]

Food, it's about the taste.

I know that's a wild concept.

Artisanally produced foods often DO in fact taste better and I can name a thousand examples. But as soon as your are buying the food for reasons other than taste, which you are certainly entitled to do, then it is no longer strictly about the food.

[FinnFPM]

I respectfully and entirely disagree with you.

If you want to simplify -- and, clearly, you do -- food is about energy content. We eat because we need to use the energy content from the foods we consume in order to survive. "Taste" is the chemical reception which allows us to differentiate between different foods, ideally permitting us to select what's best for us and avoid what could hurt us.

I don't deny that our relationship with our food has evolved far beyond this. But it's just arbitrary to define food as being "about the taste." For many, many reasons, this is simply not true.

[StriperGuy]

You are posting on a web site called "chowhound" not "holistic, political, green, for the good of humanity, food lover."

If I want to keep family farms alive I can do so by donating to the local community owned one (which I do) and I can buy their slightly pricier items (which I do) but it does not make them taste better.

[FinnFPM]

You're right. It doesn't make them taste better. You have successfully defeated your own straw man argument.

My argument is that food is about more than simply the way it "tastes." Per your "Chowhound" argument, that isn't really an argument at all; "chowhound" isn't some word with a specific meaning, it's the name of a website, and it means whatever its users decide that it means. You think one thing. I think another thing. That's fine, but I'm not the one telling others that their definition of what this site means is wrong.

Here's what Jim Leff, who founded Chowhound, wrote of why he started the site in 1997: "New York's so amazing; you can save plane fare by simply getting on the subway and eating a meal as authentic and soulful as you'd have Over There."

If only you could have been there back then to tell him that he was wrong about the soulful part. You can't taste soulfulness, Jim! Take that crap somewhere else!

[StriperGuy]

I can taste soulful in carnitas, made with commodity pork, in a dive in a tough neighborhood, with a salsa made from commercially grown chiles and tomatoes. Mostly what I rebel against is the land of the $13 pint of ice cream which surely 95% of this country and 99% of this world can't afford.

To me that is preciousness, not food.

That is not sustainability, that is elitist exclusivity for the select few. Please take the $13 ice cream, I'll go get some carnitas.

[FinnFPM]

I'm really not trying to start a fight here, but you have to understand, the price of a pint of cheap ice cream is NOT honest. It is supported primarily by two things: government subsidies to corn and soy producers, and exploitation of third-world land and labor.

The $13 pint of ice cream is what it costs to buy land in America without a tax break from the government, and to pay American laborers. This isn't about xenophobia, or cultural elitism.

Honestly, it's primarily the government and big businesses that are creating these divides. It does no one ANY good to allow them to make this a "precious ice cream producers" versus "honest hard-working carnitas vendors" issue. We're all in the same boat. Please, please don't make this that kind of fight.

You're absolutely right that for some people, the opportunity to start a sustainable operation does not exist, because that requires start-up capital that many of the poor simply do not have. 99% of the world can't afford this food because of the way that the global economy is set up, NOT because of an arbitrary premium on the price.

I have NOTHING against the producers of those carnitas, and they're a much better option than a number of other food choices people could be making. But, if nothing else, please, from the bottom of my heart, don't set this up as a fight between them and other Americans who are also trying to start businesses. This is probably going to sound stupid and paranoid, but that is EXACTLY what big businesses want you to think.

[StriperGuy]

Completely disagree.

There is a middle ground, and even with medium sized, unsubsidized farms and fair wages the "real" cost of ice cream in the U.S. is NOT $13 a PINT.

Iggy's bakery here in Boston is a perfect example to the contrary.

They pay a living wage, use well sourced grains whenever possible, and INTENTIONALLY charge a reasonable price for their breads because they have a fundamental belief that quality breads in particular should be affordable to all. They charge not too much more than a loaf of wonderbread, but at Iggy's you can get a GREAT loaf of bread for $3.50.

Just a few blocks away is the Jeni's of the Boston bread world, Hi-Rise which charges nearly 3X what Iggy's does for some of their loaves. They cater to the wealthy Huron Village crowd and could care less that people earning what their own employees earn can't afford their product.

Believe what you choose, but only in an Ivory Tower far removed from the way the rest of the world lives is $13 the actual cost of producing and selling (with a reasonable profit) a pint of ice cream in the U.S. Jeni's may be checking all of the environmentally correct boxes, etc. But don't confuse a politically correct product for the elite with sustainable agriculture that is practical on a larger scale.

I'm a business person myself, and I assure you I could duplicate that ice cream at 1/2 the cost.

$12 a QUART is still quite pricey for ice cream, and I'd be putting money in the bank.

Our country has ridiculous agricultural policies and supports ADM and Cargill in ways that harm us all. That said, your tone about the evils of BUSINESS does in fact sound paranoid. There are ethical businesses and unethical ones, and lots of shades of gray in between.

Jeni's makes a luxury product for the elite and wraps it in a nice politically correct wrapper. If you sleep better feeling like you are saving the world every time you eat her Ice Cream good for you.

If you really want to do something to save the world, start a business and source, sell, and PRICE your products in a way that is accessible for all.

[applehome]

Thanks guys - a well presented dialectic. Even as I've become politically radicalized over the last 9-10 years (and ever more so over the last few weeks in the Gulf), and my anti-corporatism is at a peak, it's good to understand that there are businesses whose profit derives from taking advantage of that radicalization and of the entire movement towards sustainable foods. I have no idea whether Jeni's fits that category or not, but it's good to see these issues laid out clearly.

[MandalayVA]

(applauds)

[Beckyleach]

I'm unfamiliar with the brands being discussed, but can point out an example of how much variation can exist between supposedly similar, "green and sustainable" items: I can drive to my local organic dairy and buy a gallon of raw milk from wonderful Jersey cows for $3. The farmer has no packaging costs (we re-use giant gallon pickle jars), no advertising costs (in fact, we're technically doing an illegal thing, so it's all word of mouth) and they are happy with the modest--but still far greater than they get by selling the rest of their milk to a cooperative--profit they make.

OR I could drive to a pricey boutique grocery in a state where commercial raw milk sales are legal, where there's a vast overhead of middlemen, advertisers, corporate shareholders, etc., to satisfy, and buy the same milk--essentially--for $9, even $14 a gallon.

It's the same milk. Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes would be the sweet spot we should try to promote: one where the farmer/producer of sustainable and even local organic produce gets a fair return on their investment, and where the businessman/woman on the other end makes a living, but not a killing. ;-)

[StriperGuy]

Absolutely!

Thank you.