And they asked for a tip at the self-checkout station!
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Don't forget the shrinkflation. Many, many, many products are now smaller or lesser in quantity than they used to be.
Don’t worry, they have BRAND NEW PACKAGING to try and distract you while a few (or dozen) grams get shaved off the total weight posted
God forbid you want to eat beef
Soon all we will be able to afford is long pork.
I think the orcas have been telling us who to butcher for that first
I've been getting ludicrously short shelf life on some produce in the past year or so. Get a bag of carrots Thursday after work, there's mold by Saturday. I don't think that was common three years ago.
Put some paper towel in with them. It'll help reduce the moisture and give you an extra few days.
The last scraps of the warehouses are being empyied out.
Also with labor shortages even the product that gets harvested ends up languishing in poor storage at various stages before it reaches the store. Instead of a quick pickup with a refigerated semi, you're getting vans a few hours late. The boxes sit in the field for longer, etc. (Anecdote from a berry farm in my area.)
I've noticed that too
I was told im not spending more. So I guess im not?
Edit: 2.79 for a small fry btw
Akchually according to this chart you're better off now, so stop complaining, you're fine. /s
And hey, we're also way more likely to get sick from the products, and then we can pay even more at the hospital (if they're still open in rural American in a couple of years). Capitalism at work, folks.
Y'all remember how big rice crispy treats used to be?
And they aren't gooey anymore
I don't eat ground beef but the people i cook for do. I could not figure out wtf was wrong with the regular grocery store ground beef, no matter how i cooked it it was coming out weird; very dense and chewy no matter how it was cooked. Also if you ever get that weird whiff of ammonia from beef i thought it was just spoiled.
Then I learned that Pink Slime didn't go away, they just changed the laws so they could add up to a certain percentage of pink slime to ground beef without identifying it. I believe it's up to 15% where i live. Suddenly the quality difference between the store ground beef and the next price tier makes a lot of sense. Also the ammonia smell as it's part of the processing. Fucking vile what american governments allow capitalists to get away with at our expense.
I told the folks who eat it and they just said okay buy the more expensive stuff then. Trying to use the experience to nudge them towards plant based alternatives but it's an uphill battle.
Then I learned that Pink Slime didn’t go away, they just changed the laws so they could add up to a certain percentage of pink slime to ground beef without identifying it. I believe it’s up to 15% where i live. Suddenly the quality difference between the store ground beef and the next price tier makes a lot of sense. Also the ammonia smell as it’s part of the processing. Fucking vile what american governments allow capitalists to get away with at our expense.
This is like when the cacao content of Hershey's chocolate dipped so low that they were going to be legally forced to call it "chocolate flavored bar". Did they alter the recipe? No, they just had the laws changed so they're still considered chocolate.
It's like how people were really against Obamacare but loved the Affordable Care Act. All you need is a bit of a label change and the public falls in line. The public has an attention span of about 2 weeks and rarely ever follows up, so they are really easy to fool.
This is one of the reasons the new administration loves to cut education budgets. Stupider people are easier to govern.
I cannot recommend enough just getting a big ol bag of vital wheat gluten for this reason.
I use essentially this recipe to replace everything I would normally use hamburger, sausage, etc. for. It's so quick and easy! Simply replacing the seasonings/ketchup with various other seasonings/sauces as if they were the marinade (ie a hamburger uses paprika, beef bouillon, poultry seasoning, onion/garlic and worcestershire) allows for endless variation and different kinds of "meats".
If making patties, meatballs, etc., let the dough rest ~15min. then get it a little damp before forming and cooking.
Adding in a bit of normal cooking flour, chickpea flour, malt, etc. allows for adjusting the texture as desired.
Very quick and easy to whip up, no more ammonia smell, perfectly marinated flavor every time, and consistent texture with absolutely no gristle.
I've been buying bison or free roam beef lately. The cheap beef we used to get is always sold out. Actually, I like this stuff better. Way less greasy.
I want to emphasize that insurance does not function to GRANT healthcare but to DENY it. Doctors grant healthcare as providers. When they prescribe it, they've granted it. Then insurance steps in and says, "wait a minute." Their only function is to deny medical care. Not pay for it - the patient does that through premiums etc. To deny it. Why do we need a healthcare DENIAL system?
The answer for why corporations need private insurance denials, is because of Hot Coffee, Erin Brokovich - we could class action sue over the bad and contaminated products companies sell us, bc it would be able to be detected. Flint, MI, was caught by testing a kid on Medicare - because they have access to healthcare. The FDA, USDA, etc should actually pay for Medicare for all to GUARANTEE their work in making sure products are safe imo. That includes these shit ass groceries without safety checks. Why should I have to pay for the government's failure to do their job? They should guarentee it and track it so they can do their jobs.
You lost?
Can you read two paragraphs to understand how the "quality of food" part of the meme connects to this?
Can you read two paragraphs
Yup. I did this before commenting.
understand how the "quality of food" part of the meme connects to this?
Nope. Are the grocery stores the insurance companies? the doctors? Maybe the food producers are? Are they denying us… quality?
The FDA, USDA, etc should actually pay for Medicare for all to GUARANTEE their work in making sure products are safe imo. That includes these shit ass groceries without safety checks.
You can't read, that's so sad
You are the first in this post (including OP) to mention food safety, which you appear to have done randomly.
The meme references quality, which is directly impacted by whether the food is rotten, full of lead, moldy, fermented, dry/squishy, worms/bugs, etc, and that is enforced by testing for quality control and issuing various consequences.
Ad populum is a fallacy btw. It's okay to have original thoughts 🌈
The meme references quality, which is directly impacted by whether the food is rotten, full of lead, moldy, fermented, dry/squishy, worms/bugs, etc, and that is enforced by testing for quality control and issuing various consequences.
Sure. Also plenty of other things that have little to do with safety, as such, and more to do with them being generally nutritious, tasty, fresh vs processed, etc.
Ad populum is a fallacy btw. It's okay to have original thoughts 🌈
Agreed. Not sure how this is relevant here, though.
While you’re looking up fallacies, red herring is a good one that this particular comment chain has made me think about.
Okay, I was referencing the safety aspect. You can tell by the words I used.
Your narcissism is boring. Other people think other things and aren't extensions of you. Your policing is boring. The gaslighting is boring.
Previous comment:
You are the first in this post (including OP) to mention food safety,
This is ad populum
Which you appear to have done randomly.
You've just acknowledged the connection and even expanded on it here in this most recent comment:
Sure. Also plenty of other things that have little to do with safety, as such, and more to do with them being generally nutritious, tasty, fresh vs processed, etc
So I guess we're done here! I've thoroughly explained this to you, held your hand through my PoV as much as someone can get a narcissist to perspective take, and can't do more. Adieu!
I know. The safety aspect that was tangential at best to the OP, barely a mention in your first comment, but somehow central to your thesis here.
Your narcissism is boring. Other people think other things and aren't extensions of you. Your policing is boring. The gaslighting is boring.
Holy projection Batman!
You are the first in this post (including OP) to mention food safety,
This is ad populum
lol no it isn’t. Ad populum is appeal to a widespread belief. The quoted bit is me pointing out that you are changing the topic.
Yours is an example of the fallacy fallacy.
You've just acknowledged the connection and even expanded on it here in this most recent comment:
Just because there’s a connection doesn’t make it relevant. You seem to have forgotten that the connected bit was buried in a paragraph after a paragraph talking about insurance companies.
I've thoroughly explained this to you, held your hand through my PoV as much as someone can get a narcissist to perspective take, and can't do more.
You haven’t. You’ve kinda shown that there is some connection to a buried sentence in a post ranting about private insurance, which was otherwise irrelevant to the post at hand, all while leveling lazy, incompetent armchair diagnoses at me (ad hominem).
Adieu!
🌈
Lol narcissism gonna narcissism
You lost?
Lol narcissism gonna narcissism
Projectors gonna project.
Yeah you are, correct
Lmao. 3 comments after you bid me “Adieu” you’re hitting me with “I know you are, but what am I?”
🥱
😴
Grocery value didn't go up. Real wages went down. We should measure inflation based on cost-of-living.
Groceries don't really get more expensive, because the methods for producing food don't really get less efficient over time; if anything, it's more efficient. So there's no real reason for them to become more expensive.
Instead, wages declined. I've already commented many times that the labor market is a free market, that means it's regulated by Supply and Demand. I.e., if prices for labor go down, as we can observe, then that can be interpreted such that supply of labor went up (women go to work too, offshoring labor to other countries, immigrants, ...) or that demand for labor went down (automation, end of growth, ...).
I honestly think that both cases are difficult, where the supply of labor could be a bit reduced by kicking out immigrants and home-shoring labor (and also, to a lesser extent, making it more difficult for women to work), which btw some advisers to trump are seemingly trying to do, but my honest opinion is that it won't bring wages up to how they were in the 1960s. Demand for labor is shrinking too, due to the end of growth and now AI and other automation techniques. I guess we'll have to face that.
edit: just to offer an optimistic outlook, i think that consumerism and therefore demand for consumer products could be stimulated by simply giving handouts to people. most people will spend most of the handouts immediately, and that stimulates consumerism. and that in turn stimulates the economy.
Groceries don't really get more expensive, because the methods for producing food don't really get less efficient over time; if anything, it's more efficient. So there's no real reason for them to become more expensive.
While I'm with you on the economic theory, the past 5 years proved that theory out the window. Yes, there were shortages and logistical issues that caused price spikes, but many grocery items never came back down, or have been held at artificially higher prices since. S&D postulates that when there are a higher number of units on the market, prices will drop. But when you have the corporate consolidation that we've seen in America where there are fewer producers (especially in name brand goods, aka one producer) as well as fewer retailers, the models don't work as they would if we were in a pure free market where producers and retailers can enter the market at any time. As such, those fewer producers and retailers can hold prices artificially higher as their businesses are scaled out (nevermind that the likes of Kroger, the largest grocer in the country, has posted record profits in recent years, as have many entities that make up the core components of the CPI), and they can leverage market position to make entering the market untenable for an upstart.
And the problem with handouts is that they come from the govt, where the treasury prints money, thereby reducing the value of the existing money supply and increasing costs on goods as suppliers and retailers raise prices because of the increased money supply, aka modern inflation.
And the problem with handouts is that they come from the govt, where the treasury prints money, thereby reducing the value of the existing money supply and increasing costs on goods as suppliers and retailers raise prices because of the increased money supply, aka modern inflation.
Yep that's why we need a wealth tax sothat the government doesn't go into more debt.
I’m glad that I picked up cooking during Covid. I don’t really eat out anymore or buy junk food. So I just have to deal with higher grocery prices… to supplement the rich.
Sam's club has sold me rotten meat twice so far this year
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