The Cost of Convenience

Janice Mansfield

As someone who works with food everyday, I am always intrigued to see what new food products emerge on the market. Recently there seems to be a spate of foods in various states of preparation. The commercials for each (in true infomercial fashion), show a harried working mother, worrying endlessly through her day about how she will endure the terrifying ordeal of peeling/chopping/cooking a nutritious serving of mashed potatoes/broccoli/lasagne for her poor family. And thus, convenience food is borne.

By no means is convenience food a brand new product on the horizon, but it does seem to have exploded in terms of shelf-space at the same rate as our lives become more complicated. As a former recovering economist, and now as someone who works with food daily, I have many questions about the opportunity costs associated with such products, not the least of which is the self-doubt about our own instincts around feeding ourselves that many of these products help perpetuate.

This discussion originally began on social media, prompted by a passing comment about one of these commercials. I think its worth more than an exchange of comments and has multiple repercussions, how about you?