The price of food....and everything really

[coasty]

I Coasty of the all seeing eyes do make the following predictions That in 5 years the following will be a fact.....

Petrol / Derve £2.50 /litre
Loaf of bread £2
Rice prices will have trebled from its current level.
Eggs £3 /dozen
There will be road pricing schemes in several major cities ala the congestion charge.
The thread for "Is Global warming a natural blah blah blah" will still be lumbering on.
Gordon Brown will still be Blaming the last conservative Goverment ( Albeit from the opposition back benches.....)
Boris “Statistically, I am due to be fired again.” Johnson
will have just been re elected to be mayor of London...........
The London Olympics Bill will have been so huge I cannot even type that many zeros...

I wonder what you all think?

[Garden Carpet]

Hi Coasty, I have just returned from visiting my sister in Spain (it rained nearly every day!!) where a litre of petrol is 1.12 euros!!!!!!! It just shows that our govt. taxes the life out of us.

I agree with your predictions on food costs. I shopped today in my local co-op.. what a dismal comparison it makes to continental shopping.. their fruit and veg are so much better quality than ours.. and so much cheaper. And the variety! So much more in the way of meat.. much better quality and the price was astonishingly low. I know we have transport to factor in but really... if they can do it.. why cant we!

jaki

[Paul mabbott]

Yes, we just filled the tank and paid about £50 - can't say we enjoyed it but, basically, it means that we'll use the car less and that can't be a bad thing if applied to everyone in the country. True enough, we don't use the car excessively but a lot of people do ...... and we'll be replacing it soon .....

When it gets down to food then we have to remember that 50% of our food is imported (from Spain perhaps) and 40% of it is wasted. There was a nice piece in the paper a couple of days back saying that most households could easily save £500 per year by considerate shopping and another £500 by avoiding waste.

I would hate to get into the Thatcher view that we should () all buy en masse and store cheap offers in our freezers, that we could use our Chelsea tractors to bring bulk, that we could get our au pairs to be more frugal ... but, apparently, most food is wasted by people who can least afford it.

There was a piece in the Guardian pointing out that bread from your own machine saves at least £1 per loaf; that making your own tomato sauce (for pasta) costs next to nothing and produces no waste if you plan properly, that hummus, pesto, all sorts of things take little time and save vast amounts of money.

... and, of course, if you carnivores out there reduced the amount of meat you ate then you could travel a little further in your car ...

Originally Posted by Garden Carpet

Hi Coasty, I have just returned from visiting my sister in Spain (it rained nearly every day!!) where a litre of petrol is 1.12 euros!!!!!!! It just shows that our govt. taxes the life out of us.

I agree with your predictions on food costs. I shopped today in my local co-op.. what a dismal comparison it makes to continental shopping.. their fruit and veg are so much better quality than ours.. and so much cheaper. And the variety! So much more in the way of meat.. much better quality and the price was astonishingly low. I know we have transport to factor in but really... if they can do it.. why cant we!

jaki

[Meta menardi]

Made my day, Coasty.

And the rate of inflation that determines the rate of my pension will be 2.5 %

(Breaks into old Music Hall song
"it's the Same the whole world over.
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what get's the pleasure
Ain't it all a blooming shame")

Please pass the 'at round, any contribution avariciously received.
But we will still have outside to go and look at.

[Pat]

Coasty, where do you get eggs at £3 per dozen in 5 years time, I bought 6 free range eggs at Tesco yesterday cost me £2.48

[Helo]

Originally Posted by Pat

Coasty, where do you get eggs at £3 per dozen in 5 years time, I bought 6 free range eggs at Tesco yesterday cost me £2.48

Good grief, what a rip off!

Eggs and supermarkets don't go together, in my book.

I buy 6 eggs from a lady who lives 'across the field', taken from chickens in her garden, for just £1

[coasty]

Originally Posted by Helo

Good grief, what a rip off!

Eggs and supermarkets don't go together, in my book.

I buy 6 eggs from a lady who lives 'across the field', taken from chickens in her garden, for just £1

I pay £2.30 for a tray of 30 from the farm,,,,,

[bleeper]

A few years ago we bought 2 hens from a battery farm, apparently too old. They cost us £1.00 each. They laid most days and lived for a good few years pecking around the garden, contented and happy. We never bought food in for them (if memory serves me right) they lived off the pecking around and kitchen scraps. Sometimes we had so many eggs we were giving them away. Best £2.00 we ever spent!
Am seriously considering getting some again.
Jen

[stripee]

Maybe there will be the return of fruit trees in gardens, apples, pears, cherries and plums. Gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries and allotments, and veg plots. I read in the Independent yesterday about super rich Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. He is not cutting back on anything, he owns a crazy amount of things for one human being.

[shei111]

Originally Posted by Pat

Coasty, where do you get eggs at £3 per dozen in 5 years time, I bought 6 free range eggs at Tesco yesterday cost me £2.48

Hello Pat Yes thats far too much for horrible supermarket eggs Ive never bought eggs from supermarket and I wouldnt have them if they gave them to me free , you cant beat buying them on the side of the road free range or farm fresh usually about £1.20 per dozen or bantams eggs about 80 pence per dozen. sheila

[Purplepixii]

Originally Posted by stripee

Maybe there will be the return of fruit trees in gardens, apples, pears, cherries and plums. Gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries and allotments, and veg plots.

We put an apple tree in last year and have just planted a cherry tree (there are unripe green cherries on it already!). We're also planning a veg patch. I want chickens - will have to discuss with my other half. Ideally I'd like to move to somewhere with a big garden as ours is too small to do what we'd like to it.

I filled up with fuel the other day, admittedly it's the expensive Shell stuff, but it cost me just under £50 for a tank!!!!! Luckily my cycle is road-worthy and I will start using that now for short journeys.

I'd like to leave England, where we are so ripped off, but I think it would be out of the frying pan into the fire

[Rich_]

The price of fuel is reaching a point now where people who need to use a car for work and other essential trips will be cutting back on other things to buy fuel. I know people now, who can't afford buy a full tank of fuel every week.

[galanthus]

Originally Posted by Pat

Coasty, where do you get eggs at £3 per dozen in 5 years time, I bought 6 free range eggs at Tesco yesterday cost me £2.48

I must have eyed-up the same eggs, they were organic free range and were marked up at £2.69 I bought instead the local free-range eggs from tesco which were over a pound cheaper and I know they live on scraps etc.

[Purplepixii]

Who will feed the wildlife when we can't afford to feed ourselves...?

[Deerhunter]

Originally Posted by Purplepixii

Who will feed the wildlife when we can't afford to feed ourselves...?

DEFRA ?

[Susie]

It costs me over £55 to put a full tank of fuel in the car now, I am very careful with the shopping but the weekly shop is still going up, I reuse leftovers and hardly anything gets wasted but because I work part time (cos I have three kids to care for too) I got hammered by the tax changes and am £25 a month worse off in my salary every month. To say that things are getting tighter financially is an understatement at the moment.

However, a walk in the countryside is free, birdsong is free and happiness is FREE!

[ron1863]

Hi Coasty,

I think your predictions are conservative, especially petrol. Every Government blames the previous one for price rises, stealth taxes etc. but when the opposition get into Government, do they reduce the taxes they were complaining about - no chance.

[ron1863]

Originally Posted by Susie

However, a walk in the countryside is free, birdsong is free and happiness is FREE!

The way prices are rising, hapiness is going to be in short supply, so they may very well tax it.

[Blackbrook Eye]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

There was a piece in the [I

Guardian[/i] pointing out that bread from your own machine saves at least £1 per loaf; that making your own tomato sauce (for pasta) costs next to nothing and produces no waste if you plan properly, that hummus, pesto, all sorts of things take little time and save vast amounts of money.

I wonder where the Guardian buy their bread, I still pay 78p per loaf from my local Co,op so it would be difficult to save a pound a loaf by making my own and anyone who has tried making their own tomato sauce will tell you, it's not cheap by any means, unless you get the ingredients for nothing to start with, but then again the Guardian is not a paper for people who live in the real world, now is it. Regarding eggs, it may be all well and good for individuals to feed their fowls on grass and kitchen scraps, but commercial growers are required to feed their stock more responsibly and that adds to the cost of production, no matter if they are battery or free range. Another point regarding eggs is that although battery rearing is not ideal, at least there is some control over the age of the product, unlike true free range, where eggs can remain hidden in unsavory conditions for days before being collected

[Susie]

Pasta sauce doesn't have to be expensive. I reckon I can make a pan of pasta sauce for about 30p. It is just one sauted onion, one crushed clove of garlic, a tin of tesco value chopped tomatoes, a squeeze of tomato puree, dried Italian herbs (or fresh herbs from the garden) and a sprinkle of salt. Try it, it tastes as good, if not better, than any stuff you can buy in a jar.

If I add to my shopping list a packet of value mince, a packet of pasta and a french stick I can feed the five of us on Pasta Bolognaise with garlic bread for 50p a head. I usually do a salad with it too so that works out at about a pound more for all of us. Any left over bolognaise sauce can be put inside a folded pizza dough base with a bit of cheese for Calzone. Yum.

[Paul mabbott]

I've costed a large home-made semi-wholemeal, organic and it's less than half the price of the equivalent at Tesco. Admittedly there is the cost of the machine but ours lasted for about seven years which amounts to about £15 per year so minimal.

As Susie points out napolitano sauce is cheap and easy - what's more there's no waste on it - any left over can be incorporated into another dish.

... and that goes back to my original point that people waste too much. We waste next to nothing so don't really bother about paying a little more for top-quality, organic ingredients.

Originally Posted by Blackbrook Eye

I wonder where the Guardian buy their bread, I still pay 78p per loaf from my local Co,op so it would be difficult to save a pound a loaf by making my own and anyone who has tried making their own tomato sauce will tell you, it's not cheap by any means, unless you get the ingredients for nothing to start with, but then again the Guardian is not a paper for people who live in the real world, now is it. Regarding eggs, it may be all well and good for individuals to feed their fowls on grass and kitchen scraps, but commercial growers are required to feed their stock more responsibly and that adds to the cost of production, no matter if they are battery or free range. Another point regarding eggs is that although battery rearing is not ideal, at least there is some control over the age of the product, unlike true free range, where eggs can remain hidden in unsavory conditions for days before being collected

[stripee]

I can recommend a bread maker. you can choose exactly what ingredients you want to use, organic flour, type of fat etc. They are more or less foolproof, it takes about 5 mins to put the ingredients in. The loaves are much cheaper. But they get eaten faster, and you need someone who can cut bread without making doorsteps

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by stripee

I can recommend a bread maker. you can choose exactly what ingredients you want to use, organic flour, type of fat etc. They are more or less foolproof, it takes about 5 mins to put the ingredients in. The loaves are much cheaper. But they get eaten faster, and you need someone who can cut bread without making doorsteps

And pizza, pitta, baps, pastry for cakes, buns, whatever ..... I'm not a great one for gadgets but the breadmaker has been one of our best investments ever .....

[Coley]

This thread looks like it could turn into a quick, easy, cheap and waste free recipe page

[Jez]

Maybe restarting manufacturing but in a manner that is eco friendly as pos for a more sustainable future is the key?!?