MIrror, Mirror

An article from Sunday's New York Times discusses recession-driven changes in consumer spending at major retailers such as Wal-Mart. Said John E. Fleming, the chief merchandising officer for Wal-Mart, "Our sales—it's like holding up a mirror to our society."

With consumers prioritizing how to spend what money they do have, they are sticking close to their lists of the essentials and favoring generic-brand goods over brand-name items. We're also seeing a "recession protein hierarchy...with ground beef trumping steak, and chicken trumping beef." Many consumers are just plain skipping protein, choosing pasta instead. 

Not surprisingly, microwave sales are also up. Heating up leftovers or a frozen entrée is more popular these days than going out or ordering in.

One good thing about living in New York is that we have access to a lot of great, cheap food, and there are even places where you can get cheap groceries. 

I used to think nothing of shelling out for a bunch of fancy Greek or Icelandic yogurt, for example, or white asparagus I didn’t really know how to cook. Now, I save that kind of stuff for once in a while (2 for $1 White Rose yogurt, anyone?), and buy cheaper produce. 

Luckily, a block away from us is this market that has amazingly low prices on fruits and vegetables. They may or may not be cheap because they fell of the back of a truck somewhere, but whatever—just wash them before you eat them, like you would anything else.

For packaged stuff like oatmeal, rice, and bread, there’s the sketchy meat market a few doors down, which is also cheap, and something of a vortex, but I’d rather risk having an adventure than pay twice as much at the Food Emporium.

Learning to cook balanced meals that actually taste good using a few cheap ingredients has been a lot of fun too—definitely better than eating a five-dollar frozen entree every night. 

So there's a bright side to everything, I suppose.