Velveeta a 'Cheap' Food? Canned Soup? SPAM??

From the Globe and Mail (thanks, David) comes this story about how times are tough all over. So tough, people have make the hard choices:

Wal-Mart's hors d'oeuvres are flying off the shelves, Campbell's condensed soup is through the roof and Velveeta is making a killing.

[...]
At $4.96 for a box of about 15, Wal-Mart's breaded hors d'oeuvres (think Jalapeno Dippers with Spicy Thai Sauce) have been selling well, as have two-pound bags of cooked shrimp priced at $8.88.

Not a single one of those things is something I consider a frugal purchase. In fact, I consider Velveet shockingly expensive, and was so thrilled my toes tingled when I learned that you can make that awesome dip even better by combining salsa and cream cheese, and leave the 'cheese food' (which sounds like something you give to your cheese to eat rather than something you would eat yourself) on the store shelves forever. Holly-loo-lah, sang our taste buds (and our checkbook).

It gets better. Canned soup sales are up, too:

"Historically, people have viewed Campbell's soups as a great value in both good and tough economic times; that fact is as true today as any time in Campbell's history," said Anthony Sanzio, group director of corporate and brand communications for Campbell Soup Co. "During times of uncertainty, people naturally seek the familiar, they seek things they can trust, such as comfort food."

Mr. Sanzio said Canadians are using soups such as cream of mushroom and cream of chicken to make casseroles, and buying the company's microwavable soups to fill out their brown-bag lunches.

I hope he's just trying to bring sales up and not telling the truth. Do people really think those soups are frugal ways to brown-bag it?
Now we come to the sob stories and hard choices:

Cara Miller, a mother of four from Saint John, says she is having trouble buying healthy food for her kids.

"I tend to browse all the flyers of my grocery stores and I plan my meals around what's on sale that week. They really are pushing the pre-packaged foods, like Lipton Sidekicks, instant potatoes and a lot of canned goods. It gets frustrating. ... I do use a lot of those convenience foods, and I want to get back to the basics. But when I go into the grocery store, the prices are astronomical. A bag of potatoes is $7 for 10 pounds."

Ms. Miller, who keeps a parenting blog called Tales from the Minivan and oversees the message boards on Canadianparents.com, said that despite the recent drop in fuel costs, fresh fruits and veggies are getting more expensive in her city.

"A lot of my friends and other Canadian parents that I converse with on a daily basis, they're feeling that crunch. The prices keep going up. ... I can go to the grocery store and if I buy four litres of milk it's costing me almost $7, but if I go buy two-litre bottles of Coca Cola, it's going to cost me two and change. That's a problem that I have, and I think it's a problem for society in general."

Actually, I would say the problem society in general might be having is not understanding that if you can't afford four litres of milk for 7.00, that doesn't mae two-litre bottles of coke at 2 and change a good buy. WATER IS FREE. The kids do not have to have coke. They just don't. Let them drink water.
Same for us grown-ups (and I love me my Dr. Pepper, I do. But it's a desire, not a need, and water is always an option).

In the United States, Spam is a hot seller, with factory workers putting in overtime to produce the canned meat product. The draw is clear: Spam is vacuum-packed for a long lifespan, and cheap.

I do not get it. Maybe things are different in Canada, or maybe people just don't understand how to figure costs. According to this article, Spam costs about 2.62 for one 12 ounce can.

I can buy ground beef for 1.99 for 16 ounces (sometimes less than 1.99).

I buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale whenever they are 1.99 or less per pound (that's 16 ounces) and stock up.

I can buy 12 ounces of canned tuna for less than 12 ounces of SPAM.

Each of these three meats tastes better, looks better, and has much better nutritional value than SPAM, and they all cost less.

In fact, I am looking at my weekly sales fliers, and I see that pork loin roast is .99; chicken leg quarters .39 lb; boneless chicken breasts, 1.69 lob; boneless pork loins are 1.89 lb, and I can get ten pounds of mixed end cut pork chops for .99 a pound. I can get Angus Pride Boneless London Broil, USDA choice Beef Round, according the sales flier I'm looking at, for 2.49 a pound- less than I would pay for a smaller amount of an inferior canned imitation of ham.

SPAM isn't a frugal food. It's not cheap. It's not a good buy in terms of nutrition or cost per ounce. The only reasons to buy SPAM are:
1. You're Hawaiian.
2. You keep it in your emergency kit for those times you need to prepare food that doesn't need to be refrigerated or cooked- although if you must eat SPAM (I included it in our typhoon kits when we lived in Japan), it is much better fried than cold. It's a reasonable choice for a disaster kit, and that means you have to eat it once in a while as you rotate your disaster kit food items through.
3. Updated to add this one-   Because you grew up with it so it's a comfort food for you (see number 1.  This is also true of other regional pockets of America).  It's not necessarily that this is a really good reason to keep eating canned, pressed, gelatinous chemicals, it's just that I cannot sniff in disdain over this reason without being a total hypocrite.  I, quite strangely, love Spaghettios (chef boy-r-dee) with a slice of buttered bread, and I despise pasta, especially mushy pasta, and the very thought of eating any other canned pasta very nearly makes me gag.  I do not make a habit of Spaghettios, but I will buy them once every five or ten years if I come across a fabulous sale, so I can't tell you to give up Spam.

It is not a reasonable choice, at least where I live, for tightening the budget.