Ask Lemmy

I agree with you but there are more ethical ways to eat meat while also saving money. Last year my wife and I purchased 1/4 of an entire cow from a farm about 35 miles north of us (friends and family bought the other 3/4). This cow was responsibly raised, grass fed, on a small, local farm. We received 200 pounds of meat with probably a dozen different cuts of meat. This includes dozens of pounds of excellent steak and the meat is simply amazing. We will definitely be going this route moving forward as we averaged the price per pound to ~$4/lb which is far less than the local grocery.

I understand this isn't possible for everyone as we also had to purchase a chest freezer which requires space but has made our grocery bill far smaller and the meat we are eating much better in many ways.

I started eating substantially less meat over the last 10 years. The money I save eating less goes towards higher quality meats from small farms. Weirdly, it depends on if you know where to go. If you buy from a farm that also butchers and packages the meat, it's going to cost and arm and a leg because they are selling both convenience and are aware that audience they are selling to has more money. However, if you purchase say 1/2 a cow and arrange to have it butchered, you pay a lot upfront, but it's even cheaper in the long run. Only problem is, you'll likely need a chest freezer.

Yeah, I've been making efforts to reduce meat from my diet for plenty of reasons. But I enjoy the taste, so I'm excited for lab-grown meat!

Hold up. We exploit South America pretty hard too.

What about Asia? Are we forgetting Africa is China's China right now?

"This Jacobo, he's making us pay minimum wages!... and that's not all, he's taking our unused land and giving it back to the people! Does that sound familiar?"

Yeah, but they can keep those deli snack cakes on the shelf for years until they're sold; you have to throw the salad out after a couple days. /s

For anyone curious about this, go google “cheese caves”. The US government has massive caverns full of cheese. The government keeps buying cheese to subsidize the dairy industry, and ensure they keep enough dairy cows around.

But this also means they have a metric fuckload of cheese, and no way to get rid of it. They can’t just give it away to the public or sell it at cost, because that would crash the price, which would harm the farmers, which would defeat the entire purpose of the subsidy in the first place. So they just lock it in a cave. The government has entire caves that are just packed full of cheese. It’ll never be eaten, and is simply left there to age.

I believe one of the biggest reasons for even keeping the cheese around at all (instead of just doing something like tossing it into a volcano) is so they can use it as a strategic food reserve during war or famine. If, for instance, the government suddenly needs to feed a much larger army, it can start tapping into that massive food reserve simply by opening the cheese caves and pulling out the (now very aged) cheese. But that’s a very large “what if”. Or maybe there’s some big disease that wipes out the majority of the dairy cows. The government would be able to keep shelves stocked while farmers work on replenishing their herds.

Where are you that almonds are cheap?

But when you think about it, beans should be cheaper than meat or something. Yeah a bag makes a whole bunch of beans but it's straight ground to plate vs feeding a cow from birth. In fact relatively speaking of seems like the bean to cow cost ratio is out of proportion, the beans should be cheaper or the cow should be more.

That does depend on where you are in the world. Even in North America, not everyone can just turn on a tap.

As well, it's generally our tax dollars that go to treating and supplying it. So we do pay for it.

That said, you're absolutely right. It's my favourite thing to drink, and it probably wouldn't be if I had to pay for every glass! Lol

Access to clean drinking water should be a human right. Water shouldn’t cost anything. So it can never be too cheap.

Yeah it's cheap, but I miss when it was $0.10/pack cheap, cheaper than dirt.

And I'm thankful for it!

It kind of makes sense though. Pasta is cheap too. Most ramen packs are less noodles than you'd get in a bag of pasta, but with a bit of packaged salt/seasoning mix. It can also be manufactured anywhere with stuff that grows locally (at least where I am).

I'm not sure if world domination usually comes with an election, but I'd vote for you!

True! I've heard that those are about making customers hungry, or are used as loss-leaders. Their value to the business goes beyond the price!

I would argue that that's because you should be paid more money. That's why I'm not suggesting we should be paying more. Just kind of wondering what foods are "artificially" priced low due to exploitation of labour (etc).