Covid-19 has changed the way many New Zealanders think about buying food, with many now seeing it as a necessity, rather than a luxury, says one of the hosts of Eat Well For Less.
Ganesh Raj, of award-winning The Tasting Shed and co-host of the new series on TVNZ1, told Breakfast this morning food shopping used to scratch psychological itches.
“Comfort shopping seems to have been something that we’ve uncovered,” he said.
The TV show helps families eat healthier while helping them reduce their spending. Raj said he and co-host Michael Van de Elzen, who filmed the series before the Covid-19 lockdown, found many people used food to overcome perceived shortcomings in everyday life.
He said the stress of daily life, the guilt of what a person is feeding their family and how much they want to provide to their kids that they didn’t have growing up is “playing out when people go shopping”.
Raj said he found many families didn’t go into the supermarket with a list.
“That says to me that they’re thinking ‘let’s have a good time!’”
He said this could lead to large bills.
But because of weeks of lockdown, Raj said things have changed.
“The timing of Covid-19 has forced us to stop looking at shopping as a luxury … it’s going to become a necessity in the sense that you’ll only put stuff in there that you can afford.”
He said the virus forced people to do what they already knew they needed to, such as keeping a shopping list, shopping when produce is in season and cooking one meal for the whole household instead of individual ones for each person.
“We just don’t have money anymore,” he said.
“We’re all being forced to re-address how we shop because of necessity, not because it could be nice to do that.”
Raj said being snobby about brands is also out the window on a tight budget.
“No one’s going to put a can of tomatoes on the shelf in a supermarket that isn’t good enough for us to cook.”
SHARE ME