> wrote in message
...
> The family?
>
> The Beardsleys, of California, as featured in the Lucille Ball movie
> "Yours,
> Mine, and Ours."
>
> Before the movie, their story was written by the mother as "Who Gets the
> Drumstick?" (Helen was a widow with 8 kids, he was a widower with 10. They
> had two more.)
>
> In that book (chapter 12), a researcher comes to the house a month after
> the wedding in the fall of 1961, to do the math on how they manage. He
> concludes that they spend 66 cents a day for food, per person. According
> to
> one inflation calculator, that's $5.15 in 2014 - and another says $5.16 in
> 2015. (I assume they were strict about not wasting food!)
>
> What's interesting, though, is that I DO waste food, unfortunately, but
> MY food budget, last December, was $120 a month - or about $4 a day!
>
> Also, there was clearly a mistake in the book - the mother said they spent
> $450 a month on food, so unless she meant $400, that would be just under
> 74 cents per person per day (using 365.25 days a year, I mean), not 66
> cents!
>
> Thoughts? Granted, I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons food might be
> cheaper now - someone also once said that in the 19th century, too, food
> was pricey but servants were cheap, which was why Louisa May Alcott, in
> "Little Women" could get away with calling her family "poor" even though
> they had a servant, Hannah.
>
>
> Lenona.

I know that I saw the movie but don't remember much about it. And I was
only 2 years old in 1961 so can't say too much about that year, but...

We moved here in 1967. We did have supermarkets here but also lots of mom
and pop type grocery stores. And in some areas, the grocery stores were
still all that were available to the people who lived in those areas. I-5
(Freeway) had not been built yet. If we wanted to go into Seattle, we took
back roads or Highway 99. So just in this area alone, we have many more and
bigger stores and many more roads with many more lanes.

I got married about 20 years ago and left this area. At that point in time,
the part of Bothell where I now live was still for the most part farm
county. People who lived here had to drive quite a few miles to buy
groceries. Now all I have to do is go right around the corner. No, there
is not a supermarket there but a drugstore that sells things like milk,
bread, cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream, a small selection of frozen,
meals, canned vegetables and fruit, soup, crackers, rice, pasta, etc. When
I was a kid, the drugstores were much smaller and did sell candy and nuts
but not a lot of food beyond that. We also have a little Mexican food
store/taqueria. I haven't been in there so don't know what all they sell.
And two Quickie Mart type places that are open 24 hours a day. They did put
a 7 11 store very near our house when I was a kid but in those days they
were only open from 7 am to 11 pm, hence the name. And they didn't sell any
fresh produce. Now you can get green salad, fruit and perhaps baby carrots.

If I do need to buy groceries, all I have to do is drive 2 miles or less in
one of two directions and there are supermarkets. Also a Dollar Tree and
some other options. Like Fred Meyer. If I choose to drive 7 miles or less,
I have even more options. So I am literally surrounded by food!

I realize that not everyone in this country is as lucky as I am. There was
a woman who lived in the military housing on Cape Cod who came from a very
isolated area. She and I both had very different takes on Cape Cod. To me,
it was a sleepy little area with not a lot to do and I felt like I needed to
pack a lunch if I had to leave the military base to go grocery shopping or
even buy bedding plants. She felt overwhelmed by the area and what seemed
to me to be the few stores and other businesses that we had. I think she
said that she came from North Carolina but I could be wrong on that. She
said that the nearest grocery store to the house that she grew up in was 20
miles away and that wasn't even a large store. She had never eaten fast
food at all nor had she seen a fast food restaurant. So places like that
still do exist in this country but they are not the norm.

Mostly, we are surrounded by food and most of the time, it is easy to get
that food there. Cape Cod was another exception there because there were
only two ways on and off of the island. For the most part, no produce was
grown on the island so things had to be trucked in. So during inclement
weather, things could get bad and food couldn't get to us. I learned to
pretty much live off of canned food during the winter. Good, fresh produce
usually wasn't available. Particularly things like salad greens.

But for most of the country, if someone wants some lettuce or a tomato in
the winter, they can go to the nearby store and get it. Although more and
more people are eating locally and demanding organic foods, I still think
that many people do not care and will buy what's available.

So not only do we have more and bigger stores, more and better roads, better
distribution methods, better growing methods, computers to speed things
along for many reasons, but cheaper ways to produce these foods, partly due
to the reasons I already gave. Factories are much more automated than they
used to be. Lots of reasons.