9 ms·

Why are food prices lower than they should be? By how much? Shrinking sizes IS raising prices.

• cwkoss 5y ago
  The commodification of foods has led to a race to the bottom: quality is reduced to make it seem like you're getting a better deal when you really aren't. - Fruits and vegetables are getting less nutritional as we've optimized for shelf-life, size and appearance. - Ingredients in processed foods are tweaked to appeal to the lizard-brain and maximize profit at the expense of nutritional value. ex. adding large amounts of high fructose corn syrup to make otherwise unpalatable low-quality ingredients more appealing - Farm subsidies have led to overproduction of low-nutritional-quality grains and encouraged the creation of processed foods which can capitalize on this market distortion Many cheap foods that are available today are not healthy because market forces push them into cutting so they are able to compete on price. I'd rather prices or portion sizes get worse than continuing this race to the bottom.
  • dpedu 5y ago
    What you're describing is reducing what the consumer receives from food for the purposes of maximizing profits. Whether that'a s function of altering the nutritional density, using lower quality ingredients, or simply reducing the overall volume what you are describing is in fact shrinkflation.