Fresh vegetables

[thesummerqueen]

Oh, I'm not bitching. I don't look down on folks who don't share my diet,

I should have specified I wasn't really bitching at you, dear. Just at "you" in the general sense.

If one lives near a place like Trader joe's or Aldi's or even the dreaded Wal-Mart, it's easier to eat a healthier diet. But if you have to pick and choose, I'm sorry some places charge and arm and a fucking leg. And don't be fooled by the rep some places like Food Lion have for being cheaper. I actually made a spreadsheet comparison of prices per weight/volume on a lot of products for six different big-box food stores (Target, Wal-Mart, TJ's, Harris Teeter, Food Lion, Lowe's Foods). TJ's and Wal-Mart won almost every single time.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I miss TJ's. The nearest one here is 30 miles away, in Austin.

[The Grand Nudger]

Aractus, ever notice that you can get a 10$ pair of sneakers, or a 50$ pair of sneakers, and the brand name is the only recognizable difference?  You also pay for Libbys, if the store label isn't good enough for you.  You can get store brand pumpkin puree for 89c a can.  

Again, you'd be hard pressed to find fresh pumpkin on store shelves here any time other than halloween.  Niche market, niche availability. During halloween (and sometimes into thanksgiving) fresh pumpkin is cheaper. Any other time of the year it's simply not present. The canned product is, ofc, also more convenient....since the only thing americans make with pumpkin, is pumpkin pie.

[downbeatplumb]

Canned foods are nonperishable, and thus will last a lot longer. Fresh veggies don't last very long.

Wait, so what you're telling me is that you believe taking a fresh vegetable and keeping it in a tin will somehow keep it "fresh"?

As will freezing it.

[Edwardo Piet]

Fresh vegetables are by far the nicest. Canned is merely convenient for me sometimes.

I would have never considered squash a pumpkin. I didn't even know there was more than 1 kind of pumpkin. I can imagine pumpkins being a type of squash, but not all squash are pumpkins, definitely not. Butternut squash is not equivalent to fucking butternut pumpkin!

[The Grand Nudger]

It's a language issue.  Australia and New Zealand use the word "pumpkin" for all winter squash.

[Losty]

It is not a type of pumpkin...

By that reasoning, Calabaze is a type of squash and not a pumpkin.

Everyone else knows that Butternut and Calabaze are types of squash also described as pumpkin.

When I go into woolies I don't expect to see Tomatoes labelled as "big red berries" and Bananas labelled as "long yellow berries". I don't expect to see "white cabbage" instead of "cauliflower", nor do I expect to see "green cauliflower" instead of "broccoli".  Butternut, Calabaze, Kent, and every other type of pumpkin is a part of the squash family, just like cauliflower and broccoli are part of the cabbage family, and tomatoes, bananas, and for that matter pumpkins as well are berries.

The top half was exhausting to read. Canned food is way cheaper than fresh in America period. I don't know where you're getting $30-40 per kilo of canned pumpkin but it sounds like crazy talk.

The canned stuff I linked to costs AU$10/kg (USD 2.98/29Oz = USD 3.29/lb = USD 7.26/KG = AUD 9.93/kg). Pumpkin in Australia costs $2-5, generally, a kilo. Explain to me how the tinned stuff is cheaper - because the maths just doesn't add up. At $2-5 a kilo, the 29Oz tin should cost between USD 0.59 - 1.48. And if it were to be just 3x cheaper than fresh (as claimed by Brakeman who said tinned veggies cost 3-4 times less than fresh) then it should cost no more than USD 0.49. But the can costs SIX TIMES that amount.

My point was that he claimed that canned food is 3-4 times cheaper than fresh. Since this can costs AUD 9.93/kg (close enough to 10/kg), that would mean fresh pumpkin would sell for between AUD 30-40 a kilo. Or, if you prefer, between USD 9.87 - 13.16 /lb.

1 can of pumpkin has 15oz
And average size pumpkin taken the edible flesh and cooking it is around 15oz (most sources say 14 but close enough)

1 can of pumpkin at Walmart is $1.58
Fresh pumpkin at Walmart is
$2.50-4.00
(Where I live they sell them in October and November for $3.88 each)
That's about 2.45 times the cost for fresh instead of canned.

[The Grand Nudger]

The canned will also remain edible for a year or more in the absence of refrigeration.  Not gonna get that out of a fresh pumpkin.

[thesummerqueen]

Aractus, ever notice that you can get a 10$ pair of sneakers, or a 50$ pair of sneakers, and the brand name is the only recognizable difference?  You also pay for Libbys, if the store label isn't good enough for you.  You can get store brand pumpkin puree for 89c a can.  

Again, you'd be hard pressed to find fresh pumpkin on store shelves here any time other than halloween.  Niche market, niche availability. During halloween (and sometimes into thanksgiving) fresh pumpkin is cheaper. Any other time of the year it's simply not present. The canned product is, ofc, also more convenient....since the only thing americans make with pumpkin, is pumpkin pie.

Quibbling: you clearly haven't been to the more hipster parts of America where just about every goddamn thing that can be eaten is made with pumpkin.

Pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cakes, pumpkin pretzels, pumpkin yogurts, ice creams, etc.

But it is a seasonal thing. And it is all made with the canned "filling."

[The Grand Nudger]

Pile up everything that hipsters eat made out of pumpkin and it won't register as a blip on our productions radar.  Pumpkins are a rough product for the grower, when you think about it.  

Seasonal demand.
Purchased by sight.
Long time in the field.
Enormous footprint on the production space.
Chronically ill.

They're in the grey area where it's not like growing fieldcorn...but it aint quite like growing yuppie chow either.

(Personally, I think we should retire the pumpkin, just about every other winter squash crushes it in every relevant metric. They're easier to grow, people like them more, and they're more profitable.)