BUYING MEAT: high vs low cost page 2

[AuH2Ogirl]

For the vast majority of products bought and sold, if someone is selling something at a certain price, it's because they're making money doing it (we are assuming they're making a profit) because people value what they're selling enough to pay the asking price. No one is forcing them to buy it.


If no one buys what they're selling at that price, they'll have to change their price or their product. For example, I pay about twice as much for a dozen eggs from a local farmer than I would at the grocery store. Because I value the pastured eggs at least twice as much as store-bought eggs, and I like the family. If I didn't, I wouldn't buy them.


The only way the farmer would be ripping me off is if he had chicken houses somewhere and the eggs I got weren't from all the chickens running around on the farm. I am perfectly capable of looking for a cheaper source of pastured eggs. Their price is fair because I pay it.

[SassaFrass88]

Also, we have to think about cost and demand here. Simple economics.


For example, Organic Milk cows are WAY more expensive to maintain than non-organic milk cows. Why? Major difference in the treatment of the diseased animal and the treatment/ throw out of diseased milk.


You let a diseased cow die because you choose not to give it antibiotics... BAM! $1500+ down the drain. The non-organic farmer can pump that cow full of antibiotics and still gather milk. Same with the milk. If you boil the crap out of it, even diseased milk will now be considered 'safe for consumption' according to the FDA. Throw out any milk that tests as 'diseased' (raw dairy farmer here) and BAM! More lost money.


Anyway, the point is, what is it truely costing these folks to really raise the meat healthily?


It's the 'bad' farmers and dairymen that made these products more 'cost effective' to begin with.


Grain + Cows = More Meat for sale $$$

Pasteurization + Milk = Selling even diseased milk, instead of pure, quality product.

[SassaFrass88]

(It's the bad farmers that set the 'low-bar' that make the good farmers look like highway robbers! Just like the whole 'Made in China' issue. You have access to Walmart to pay $3 for a T-shirt, sure you save money, instead of paying $30 for a USA made product, but in the long run, the cost of that $3 T is in the 'slave/ child labor' used, opposed to the US labor, which costs much more).

[glorth2]

I am down with SassaFrass.

[guido]

Definitely a hard problem: How to keep small often family farmers who produce high quality grass fed/organic meat/veggies in business when land is more valuable as house lots, the big box stores are pressuring producers to sell "organic" products at lower and lower prices and consumers hit by the recession are feeling less likely to spend on quality food. I recently saw statistics using pre recession figures show that the average american spends only 10% of their income for food -- down from >20% only 10 years ago while complaining more loudly. The implications of this is pretty scary.

My personal solution is to buy as local as I can and happily pay extra for high quality and concern. If it keeps a few more farmers in business I consider it money well spent.

[OnTheBayou]

No one makes T-shirts in the USA. At least not even 5% of the sales, if that.


Just in Harpers this month, about the garment industry in SE Asia. They can make and deliver to the US a quality T-shirt for $2!


Wart Mart might sell it for $3 and The Gap for $20, so it's really only a question of how badly do you want to get ripped off and/or support the billionaire Waltons.

[SassaFrass88]

Ha ha, you're probably right about the T's (it was just a 'product example' on my part...)


I bet even 'US' T's are printed here, but purchased somewhere else.

[Astrogirl]

American Apparel does make their Ts in the US - all their stuff is made in L.A.


It's not high quality, and it's expensive, and I'm sure it is a very small part of the market.


But, if you really want a US made T-Shirt (or other knit fabric garment), AA has you covered.