Inflation degrades food quality: shifting from olive to sunflower oil

From olive to sunflower oil: how food quality degrades

The cheapest supermarket items are often the healthiest: oats, rice, legumes, eggs, sardines. Yet the prevailing feeling is the opposite: eating well has become a privilege. This paradox traces a shopping basket that has lost quality piece by piece. Sunflower oil instead of olive oil for dressing, supermarket bread instead of bakery bread, more pasta and rice where steaks used to be, chicken as the only meat, fruit reduced to the cheapest seasonal options, and cans of tuna turned into luxury items replaced by sausages. As one shopper puts it: "I antiestéticar my health, and that of the general population, will soon deteriorate."

What changes in the basket when inflation bites

The adjustment is not a single decision, but a sum of micro-decisions no one signs on paper. Olive oil is swapped for sunflower; bakery bread for three supermarket loaves costing just over one euro and tasting of little. Ham slices are cut thinner, with a wink included, and the vitamin supplement is the first to disappear from the cart. Fruit yogurts become basic flavored yogurts, and cookies are chosen without checking for palm oil.

For milk, whole milk is sought to use less, with an unconfirmed suspicion that semi-skimmed is whole milk diluted with water, resulting in similar calories. Chocolate is selected by price per kilo, accepting it tastes worse than the usual brand. Beekeeper honey is replaced by store-brand honey, described as "more of a substitute." The cart fills up, the receipt balances, but the pantry empties of nutrients.

Is eating healthy more expensive than eating poorly?

Here, the story of impoverishment clashes with the real shelf prices. Oats are among the cheapest and most nutritious in the cereal aisle. Legumes are left behind because few cook: a kilo costs around 2 euros and yields about twenty dishes. The humblest blue fish is also the healthiest, selling for 3 euros per kilo in many markets. And eggs, though prices have risen, still cost 1.80 euros for a dozen large eggs in some stores, or 3 euros for free-range eggs from local producers.

The repeated conclusion: what raises the cost of the basket is not healthy food, but processed goods, cookies, and chocolate. Replacing animal protein with rice and legumes lowers the cost, it does not raise it. The problem is that this change is perceived as a loss of status and flavor, not as savings. Those who cook little end up paying for convenience exactly what is missing from their plate.

The basket calculation: 10 euros a week and 80 a month

Some claim that 10 euros can feed you for a week: more than five kilos of fruit and vegetables, a package of rice, and another of legumes. Adding 40 euros monthly for produce and another 40 for animal protein, the total comes to around 80 euros per month per person. The contrast with real shopping comes from elsewhere: four supermarket products for 23 euros; three avocados, a tomato, half a dozen organic eggs, a lemon, and half a liter of olive oil for another 20 euros. Total, 43 euros for nothing special. The fine breakdown of this account, with the gap between buying at source and in stores, leaves the opposing views most divided.

On the other side, some recall that farmers receive 0.25 euros per kilo for products sold in stores for 3 to 4.50 euros. The distance between these two numbers is not explained by drought or transport: it is explained by intermediaries. At the opposite extreme are those who doubt the diagnosis: if the problem is lack of income, discussing tomato prices is an elegant way to avoid talking about wages.

Quality drops without any index measuring it

Price indices measure prices, not composition. No one certifies how much water is in milk, how much sucrose is in a jar of honey, or how much a thin ham slice actually weighs. Several voices estimate the perceived price increase at 20% compared to 2022, a percentage not found in official statistics but consistent with the general feeling of buying less with the same money.

This is compounded by a debate on origin. It is argued that cheap products come from farther away, with more transit and less freshness, and that bottled honey may be a mix of different origins. These claims circulate unverified and should be treated as what they are: consumer perceptions, not laboratory data. But they explain why many people stop trusting labels before questioning prices.

Working more, saving, or resigning: the debated solutions

Against the diagnosis, recipes compete. One line argues the problem is income and the solution is to work more or earn more. Another points to superfluous spending and advises cutting outings, phone bills, and subscriptions before food, because what is not spent on eating today ends up spent on medicine tomorrow. A third, more practical, approach suggests buying directly from producers, using bycatch fish for broths, starting a garden, or practicing intermittent fasting to skip a meal.

The property route also appears: finding cheaper housing and transferring the savings to the plate. And a calculation repeated as a thermometer: those who cannot set aside a certain amount each month are losing ground, even if they do not notice. With salaries of 1,200 euros a quarter-century ago and 1,560 now, the uncomfortable question is what was expected to happen.

The result, for now, is a cheaper and worse basket. Can you eat well spending less, or will the adjustment eventually take its toll on the health of those who make it?