Food Price Comparisons: USA vs Canada

OK, so you might remember that last week I did a bit of a cross-border shopping spree in Colville, Washington, where there is a great dollar store and a humungous Wally World.

With an OK-but-not-terrific Canadian dollar, is it still worth it? Well, let's take a little look with a smattering of price comparisons from my latest receipt.

Butter in USA: 2lbs/$4. Butter in Boonieland Canada: 1lb/$4 - if you're lucky; unsalted is more.

Eggs @ Colville Wally World: 18 for $2.38 (and they're nice, too). Eggs @ my local overpriced grocery store: $2.99/1 doz.

1kg brown sugar @ Colville WW: $1.82. Same here in Boonieland : $2.49 on sale.

4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts @ Colville WW: $4.50. Same at my local overpriced grocery store: about twice that - if I'm lucky, which I'm not, so I don't buy them anymore.

1lb Tillamook medium cheddar: $5.58. Here @ home: unavailable in my local stores, so I buy whatever is on sale, and an equivalent amount is rarely under $7.

1kg icing sugar @ Colville WW: $1.38. Here: $2.49 on sale.

See where I'm going with this? Yeah.

The other thing is the sheer amount of variety unavailable to me here in my rural corner of Canada. I counted about 20 different flavours of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the WW freezers; here, you might see five or six, if that - and they cost over twice the price. I saw about the same number of flavours of Dreyer's ice cream, which I've never seen in Canada, including a pumpkin one that I just had to have - and it was fan-frakking-tastic, too (BTW, the chocolate sauce you see in the picture adorning my pumpkin ice cream is Hershey's and it was about half of what I'd pay up here, too). 1.98L Island Farms premium ice cream goes for about $7.99 here and this Dreyer's was $3.50! And the varieties of Hershey's Kisses! We don't get all those up here. Nor do we get Chex mix! I don't get it!

So, is it worth it? Yep, IMHO, it is - as long as the dollar doesn't slide any more.

SPAM Rant

I was really disturbed one morning last week while watching CBC Newsworld. During one of the business segments, there was a story about how, since food prices are rising and incomes are not, SPAM is becoming more and more common on the shopping lists of those trying to stretch their food budgets as much as possible.

Yahoo has a fuller account here.

My first response was, Eeeeeeewwwwww! SPAM is like totally gross! I think I had SPAM once or twice as a little kid, probably on a camping trip. If it was anything like canned corned beef, which we had quite a big of growing up, it was totally repulsive.

Then the sadness settled in.

I live on a small income, and I get by. And I don't eat a ton of processed, chemical-filled, unidentifiable foods, either. I manage to eat healthy whole foods, with the occasional junky binge here and there. My cupboards are not full of KD and ramen and I don't subsist on tuna casserole of Chef Boyardee. I certainly avoid SPAM and most canned meats like the plague (once in a while I do crack open a tin of tuna or a tin of salmon).

Sure, SPAM is cheap, but let's take a look at the nutritional information, which I gleaned from Wikipedia (such info is irritating to come by on the SPAM web site, which is one of the most annoying, absurd sites I have ever had the misfortune of directing my browser to):

1 serving = 2oz/56g: 7g protein, 2g carbohydrates, 15g fat (including 6g saturated fat), 170 calories, and nearly 1/3 of the daily recommended intake of salt

The labeled ingredients are: chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added, salt, water, sugar, and sodium nitrite to help keep its color.

Historically, it was widely used during WWII when rationing was on. Since then, it's become quite the legend. There is a collection of SPAM cookbooks.

But so what? Apart from price, there are absolutely no redeeming qualities about this product at all!

Surely the $2.50 - $3 a can of SPAM costs nowadays could be better spent. A dozen eggs would be a far better source of protein and nutrients, is far more versatile, and would go much farther on a small budget. There are other much healthier food choices out there than purchasing a can of SPAM for dinner. Really. Really.