Save Money By Spending a Fortune on Food

What's the temple worth?

How much should we, could we, would we spend on food per week? Thirty dollars, $80.00, $150.00, $400.00? Well, in France, families spend on average about 14% of their incomes, and another 3 to 4% on dining out. And I'm quite sure that next door in Italy, the number is probably double. This comes direct and thorough observation from living in both countries.

In America according tot the USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS 2005) , Americans spent on average, 9.9 percent of their disposable income on food. This is up from from 9.7 percent in 2004 and consistent with figures over the past five years. The percentage actually dropped to single digits for the first time in recorded U.S. history in 2000. Food trends have significantly changed from twenty years ago when American consumers spent about 11.7 percent of their disposable income on food. If we go back 30 years we will find the statistic to be 15.1 %. And if we travel even further back in time. Let's say about the turn of the century, Americans spent up to 20% of their incomes on nourishing their bodies.

Gracious me, what happened? Well apparently, the development of more efficient equipment, mechanization, the use of hybrid seeds, fertilizer, crop protectorants and other inventions have been attributed to the lowered food costs in the US... However, the earnings of food producers have generally decreased by 11% over the same period. If we take a close look at the food spending habits of more traditional populations in grades from Western Europe, to Africa and Asia, we typically find that those nations with a higher presences of convenient, fast and fried, cheaply processed food of low or questionable quality, we find a signigicant decrease in the percentage of disposable income is spent on nourishing their bodies.

Presently, if we look at the world we find the spending trends of the following countries
Germany 10.9 %
Japan 13.4 %
South Korea 13.4 %
France 13.6 %
South Africa 17.5
Mexico 21.7 %
China 28.3 %
Russia 36.7 %
India 39.4 %
Indonesia 49.9 %

Similar to the case of the recent recognition of global warming so the public begins to make the correlation of coomprimised health to the quality of items consumed into the body. No one argues that caviar can be an extremely expensive item, to be reserved for once in a life time events for some. However, think of the amount of dollars one has readily spent on foods of such low quality that they may be classified as toxic. In other words, large things sometimes come in small packages. - And remember, you are what you eat.

Best of the best,
Marcia