Prices and availablity *

After hearing the presentation on why rise in price of oil is connected to the rise in the prices of food we talked about what we can do as consumers. The price of food rise is related to the oil rise because they use corn to turn it into fuel. The need for yellow corn has made the corn more expensive compared to white corn and even the price of the white corn got more expensive because of the demand for them. So as a class, we talked about ways we can do as consumers to help ourselves in the struggling economy. We can first of all try to buy local grown foods by going to farmers markets and to local butchers for meat. Even if you are buying something from a grocery market, try to buy the organic produce and just be healthier. A point was raised in class about the difficulties in buying local grown foods and going to farmers market. I have to agree with this as well, it's hard for people to wait for one day to do grocery shopping. When a person doesn't have enough time and places like Safeway and QFC are available 24 hours it's easier for people to go there anytime that they can. The most important factor why it is harder for consumers to eat local grown and healthier with organic foods is because it just more expensive. With the economy becoming worse and worse for the consumer, it is just hard. This only leaves the consumer to want to buy what is cheaper which reduces the organic and local producers.

We also talked about how the market places present themselves in a way that we want to buy more things and end up buying more than what we came for. With the things like, organization of the market and the music they play. Things like milk and eggs that we need most often are in the back so that on the way there, you run into other desirable items that you didn’t think to buy. These are some of the reasons why this matter of changing people's habits to eat healthier is harder.