The prices of food differ so widely at different seasons and in
different parts of the world, that there is not much profit in trying to
figure how cheaply a person can live. I have found that I spend for the
diet I have indicated here, from sixty to eighty cents a day. I do not
buy any fancy foods, but on the other hand, I do not especially try to
economize; I buy what I want of the simple everyday foods in their
season. Most everyone will find that it is a good business proposition
to buy the foods which he needs to keep in health. If the average
workingman would add up the money he spends, not merely in the
restaurants, but in the candy stores, the drug stores, the tobacco
stores, and the offices of doctors and dentists, he would find, I think,
that he could afford to buy himself the necessary quantity of wholesome
natural foods. For a family of three, in the place where I live, enough
of these foods can be purchased for a dollar a day, and this is about
one-fourth what common labor is being paid, and one-eighth of what
skilled labor is being paid. I will specify the foods: a pound and a
half of shoulder steak, a loaf of whole wheat bread or a box of shredded
wheat biscuit, a head of cabbage, a pound of prunes, and four or five
pounds of apples.
There are many ways of saving in the purchase of food if you put your
mind upon it. If you are buying prunes, you may pay as high as fifty
cents or a dollar a pound for the big ones, and they are not a bit
better than the tiny ones, which you can buy for as low as eight cents a
pound in bulk. When bread is stale, the bakers sell it for half price,
despite the fact that only then has it become fit to eat. If you buy
canned peaches, you will pay a fancy price for them, and they will be
heavy with cane sugar; but if you inquire, you find what are known as
"pie peaches," put up in gallon tins without sugar, and at about half
the price. The butcher will sell you what he calls "hamburg steak" at a
very low price, and if you let him prepare it out of your sight, he will
fill it with fat and gristle; but let him make some while you watch, and
then you have a very good food. One of my diet rules is that I do not
trust the capitalist system to fix me up any kind of mixed or ground or
prepared foods. I have not eaten sausage since I saw it made in Chicago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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