Boomers, X'ers, and Millennials

Allan Nation posted a little snippet from a study on the eating habits of Baby Boomers (43-62), Generation X (32-42), and Millennials (16-32). He doesn't link to the study, but he does give a basic summary of the findings:

"Baby boomers believe in balanced meals, consumption of fruits and vegetables, and avoidance of fats; but Millennials are the largest users of natural and organic foods. Boomers are far more interested in limited trans fat consumption that the other two generations. Millennials eat more meals away from home than at home while Boomers tend to reserve dining out for special occasions. Only 40% of Gen Xers dine out more frequently that they eat at home."

It is funny because as soon as I read that quote this morning I clicked over to blogger to start writing this post. The first thing that popped into my mind was that we need to get the natural/local/organic food into more restaurants (both large and smaller local ones). After I had that thought I went back to read the rest of Mr. Nation's post and saw that he came to the same conclusion.

On the flip side, I think it also points out that we need to continue to educate. I have to admit that I have a passion for helping people be good stewards of their money, and eating at home more often than eating out is one of those stewardship issues. Of course restaurants don't want to hear that, but I think they will be fine because plenty of people will still eat out. When you combine the importance of eating local and supporting the local economy there are so many benefits.

Is anybody working on getting their food into local restaurants? I recently wrote about a place in North Carolina that is connected with a farm ... pretty cool thing.

Late Post ... But, Interesting Article

Wow, this is one of the latest times I have posted (except when I just forget to put it up). It is Vacation Bible School week at the church and I have been crazy busy (especially after the weekend) getting things ready and trying to coordinate it all. Hopefully things will continue to slow down a little ... but, I doubt it. So, that is my sob story on why this is a such a late post. But, I did come across a really interesting article that I wanted to share.

According to the article, "New Research: Consumers Willing to Pay More for Locally Produced Food", the average grocery store consumer is willing to pay a little more for locally grown foods. And, at the Farmer's Market they are willing to pay almost twice as much as the would for the same food at the grocery store (I assume they are talking about the bigger Farmer's Markets, not the dinky ones like in my community). I find this news very encouraging and it also backs up what I have been experiencing and hearing.

Although the researcher found that people are more willing to buy local food he wouldn't go as far as saying that people should only eat local food. I would say that most people would agree with that assessment, but I do know of some that believe we should go local as much as we can ... even if it means not having some foods available at certain times.

Since this is just going to be a quick post I'm not going to take the time to throw out all of my thoughts, but I do have a ton. In fact, I think this would be a good thing to bring up on the Epi-Log ... to see what other consumers think. If you have a chance to read the article I would love to hear your thoughts! So, read the article and leave a comment...

Paying Your 2008 Food Bill

According to an article I read in the February 13, 2008 issue of the "Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman" if you are an average American you have already earned enough money by the beginning of February to pay for all your food for the entire year. According to the statistics you spend around 9.9% of your disposable income on food. As I read through the article I had a couple of thoughts ... The first thing that popped into my mind was, "wow, that is nice that we are such an affluent country that we can do this so quickly". Then I thought, "hmmm, is this something to be proud of?"

Let me through out a few more statistics from the article. It says, "consumers have to work 52 days a year to pay for health care, 62 days a year to pay for housing costs and 77 days a year to pay their federal income taxes." But, they only need to work about 35 days to feed their family for the year. The conclusion of the Farm Bureau is that this is a good thing and only proves how great American farmers are at being efficient in raising livestock and growing grain.

The first question that pops into my head is this ... How many days from those 77 days it takes to pay our taxes are needed to subsidize the farming and food industry? I think we need to factor that in if we are going to get a true representation. Here is another question ... How much of the food produced in this country is consumed by this country, and how much do we import? I truly don't know the answer to that one, but would be interested in hearing if anyone knows.

On the surface this seems so great. Our food is cheap and thus we have more money to spend on other junk! But, is cheap affordable preservative and hormone packed food a good thing? Would be be better off as a country if it took say 15% or 20% of our disposable income to feed our family for the year? Would they be getting higher quality food and then in turn be more healthy?

This is what Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Lang has to say, "They also need to know that a $4 box of corn flakes has a nickel's worth of corn. But a lot of work goes into making that nickel's worth, and Iowa farmers are proud to be responsible growers and do their part in feeding the nation and a growing world population." So, CORN flakes only take a nickel's worth of CORN? It's going to take a lot of corn flakes to sustain farming families across the country!

I'll end with this. According to the statistics in the article, "of every dollar spent for your food item at the grocery store, 38 cents is for labor; 24 cents is for packaging, transportation and advertising; and 19 cents is was spent by the farmer on input costs". That totals up to 81 cents of which only 19 cents are left for profit. That profit needs to be divided by the grocery store, the food manufacturer, and then the farmer. How much do you think your farm neighbor receives in the deal? And we are proud of this...

What would the US be like if a large portion of the population began purchasing their food directly from the farmer ... cutting out the middlemen and getting a higher quality product ...

Eating Local ... What is Local ... Why Even Try?

Writing over at the epi-log is kind of a new experience for me, and hopefully it will be a chance to discuss and promote local eating. For my first post (if you haven't read it yet click here) I wanted to give an brief introduction of some of the reasoning behind or desire to farm. Knowing where our food comes from is important to us and supporting our community is equally important. It was a brief post and not very detailed, but it did spark a couple of interesting comments that you should check out at the bottom.

I think the poster brought up some points that many people would agree with. What is the definition of "local"? Why shouldn't we enjoy the benefits of living in an affluent society and purchase food at lower prices? Isn't one of the benefits of the global trade that we can eat fruits in Iowa in the middle of the winter? And, how about one of the commenters last points ... buy purchasing overseas products we are actually supporting farmers who are poorer than the farmers in the United States.

As I mentioned these seem like valid points to most consumers in the United States, maybe even more so to people who love to dine at a higher level than I do. But, I think it just shows why we (farmers) must produce food that is better than anything out there so that the eating speaks for itself. We must be educated, informed, ready to answer questions, and engage intelligently and winsomely in debate.

What do you think of those points that were brought up? How can we as farmers educate the consumers on those specific areas? Thanks to "The Beginning Farmer" reader mellifera I have a feeling that purchasing food products that originate overseas may not help the farmers as much as we would like to think. So, what else do you think? What do we need to do to educate our friends and neighbors?