3 Chapter 3: Eating like Kings is Not How it Used To Be: How the Availability of Nutrient-Dense Foods Have Impacted Restaurant Prices

By Salena Rodriguez

Introduction

The phrase “we eat like kings,” has never felt so different. During the Middle Ages, nobility was known to have grand feasts to showcase their wealth. These feasts often consisted of a variety of meats, poultry, fish, and vegetables, served on the finest china they owned (Liddell, 2016, para. 7). During this time, the more wealth you had, the higher both the quantity and quality of the food was. In the present day, however, there seems to have been a shift in the amount of food one receives according to the level of quality. For example, if one goes to a fine-dining restaurant you will find that you pay an incredible amount of money for a portion the size of your fist. However at a fast food restaurant, you receive a larger portion while paying less. Why is that?

In the 21st century, food is becoming more valuable by the day (Crezo, 2024, para. 1). Due to the decreasing availability of nutritious food, the price of said foods are increasing, affecting both consumers and producers. With this in mind, restaurants must make tough decisions in how they price, order, and portion their food so that their customers remain happy while also staying within their financial budget. Throughout this chapter, I will unpack these issues in greater detail in order to understand how changes in food distribution, economics, and food waste impacts a restaurant’s menu prices.

Availability of Nutrient-Dense foods

When you think of American food, what comes to mind? Hamburgers? Hotdogs? Pizza? “Americans when questioned as to favorite foods are apt to name an undefined category of food – “a steak,””ice cream” – without specifying any of the details which would define a sensuous image” (Mead, 1943, p. 48). There are 5 main food categories: fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy. The reason for these groups is to provide guidance for how much a person should eat per meal, in order for them to receive the proper nutrients (Chang, 2017, para. 3). The categories that Americans tend to name, like the ones stated above, don’t necessarily fit within the 5 main food groups the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) names. America has become a country where its citizens prefer simple, easy, and convenient meals rather than cooking their own using the nutritious foods the ground provides. Looking at an average American diet, it primarily consists of excess calories, added sugars, and saturated fats. These types of foods often contain empty calories, meaning they provide no significant nutrients but are high in calories (Richards, 2023, para. 1). “This is contributing to a phenomenon called hidden hunger, where people feel sated but may not be healthy, as their food is calorie-rich but nutrient-poor” (Lovell, n.d., para. 15).

Nutrient-dense foods, like leafy greens, fatty fish, berries, beef, chicken, etc., are filled with various vitamins, minerals, and other essential nutrients that keep you healthy and full. A BBC news article stated that “a 2004 US study found important nutrients in some garden crops are up to 38% lower than there were at the middle of the 20th Century” (Lovell, n.d., para. 2). In modern day farming, there is an emphasis on increasing crop yields to meet supply and demand. Soil, as a living ecosystem, carries and provides the nutrients for the crops growing in it. In order for it to thrive, soil needs diversity and time to replenish the nutrients the plants absorb. However, with higher crop yields nutrients are being used up faster than the soil can replenish them, eventually leading to a depletion. When the soil doesn’t have any nutrients to give, the crops themselves don’t receive them, making us see that decrease in nutrients and creating the growing problem of “hidden hunger.” Due to this phenomenon, people are consuming more high processed foods that won’t keep them full for very long. This in turn causes people to eat a larger portion of food, leading to an increase in obesity rates.

Globally, about 1 million people are living with obesity. In the US alone, “the prevalence of obesity among adults was 40.3% during August 2021–August 2023,” (Emmerich, 2024, para. 2), with the percentage varying between different age groups. With more people opting to eat fast food, there is a decreased demand for high nutrient crops. When there is a loss in demand for a product, producers begin to prioritize what the people want, making the neglected products difficult to find. Farms work in a similar way. “Heavily influenced by government subsidies, farmers are incentivized to grow soy and grains like corn” (Johnson, 2024, para. 8), crops that are high in calories but low in nutrients. It’s more costly for farmers to grow high quality food when people aren’t going to want to buy them, leading them to focus on increasing crop yields for foods that are more popular among people.

Despite the influences, there are still many farms that continue to grow these nutrient-dense foods, like Cal-Organic Farms in California and Mcenroe Farms in New York (United Country Real Estate, 2024). Farms like these, who do grow the higher quality food, however, typically need to up their prices of their produce to meet their production budget.

Cost

With the availability of high quality crops decreasing due to the rising demand for processed foods, the price for said crops is skyrocketing. In a 2002 report, “the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicted that the prices of beef and pork might be 20% higher by 2017, wheat could be up to 60% more expensive, and the cost of vegetable oils might rise by 80%” (Mackenzie, 2011). It was mentioned earlier in this paper that farmers who are choosing to grow more nutrient-dense crops are needing to raise their prices. Not only is that due to decrease in overall availability, but also because some farmers will choose to add value-adding activities to their overall costs in order to make more profit. “According to [36] Katz and Boland (2000, p. 102), value adding activities are those within an industry or company that can contribute to creating a product or service consumers value…” (Duarte Alonso, 2013, p. 4). These activities include the time they spent investing into their products as well as the necessary resources they used. A couple examples of this type of activity would be making strawberries into jam or wheat into flour (Cornelisse, 2024, para. 4) as well closely examining your crops to make sure they are the best they can be. Adding labor considerations into a farmers price gives them the ability to increase the value of their products, overall helping them to continue growing these nutritious crops. But farmers aren’t the only contributing factor to this increase in prices.

Changes to the economic system is also a big factor to consider when thinking about price increases. The US food system as a whole has many weaknesses within it. We see these weak points being revealed during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 as the “system is largely built on long-distance food supply chains, many of which have been disrupted due to lockdowns and trade restrictions” (Stead, 2022, p. 31). With limitations on trade, it brings us backs to the issue of food availability. Because the US food system relies heavily on trade, when everything shuts down, including the ability to receive imported goods, the food stock in America isn’t being replenished nearly as often, leading to the price increases that are being implemented. “Based on BLS data, the Farm Bureau Federation estimated that the price of many common grocery items increased in April 2020 compared with 2019—egg retail prices increased 38%, ground beef increased 11%, and whole milk increased 10%” (Cable, 2021, p. 6). Comparing the data presented in the 2002 study report from above and data from the 2020 report, the price of beef has jumped significantly in the past eighteen years. The tariffs that are being enacted in 2025 will only continue to encourage the raising of food prices.

A tariff is a tax put into place by the government on imported goods in order to raise government revenue, protect domestic industries and correct trade imbalances, or even used as a political tool for negotiations (Hahn, 2025, para. 2). With these taxes in place, consumers are expected to see prices in food like nuts, coffee and sugar, seafood, tropical produce, and olive oil increase by a 10% tariff, seafood by 26-46% depending on where it is being imported (Severson, 2025, para. 2-3). These prices are not only impacting consumers, but also establishments like restaurants and retail stores that are purchasing these imported goods, making it more difficult for people to have the ability to access affordable, healthy food.

Cost Management

Increasing food prices make the food more valuable, causing people to want to savor it more than they did in past years. To better imagine this, think about nutritious food as an antique object. The older it gets, the more value it gains because it becomes harder to find. With the availability of high quality foods decreasing due to human preferences, financial gains, and difficulties with trade implementations, healthy foods are becoming more and more difficult to get our hands on. Knowing this, I can assume that people in the food industry want to be able to savor their inventory for as long as possible. In order to do this, they must make rational decisions based on what their objectives are for their establishment. With rising prices, retail stores and restaurants are needing to rethink their approaches when deciding how to price and sell their products. In 2008-2009, a study was conducted to observe how hotels in Hong Kong responded to a steady increase in prices of food. This study looked at high-, mid, and low-tier hotels to observe the differences in how the hotels assessed and handled the price increases. It was found that while the high-tier hotels had little complications, the mid- and low-tier had greater challenges combating those prices.

Quality of food and satisfaction of customers took priority for the high-tiered hotels. In order to keep those expectations, they decided to keep the same suppliers and instead increase their menu prices. The primary reason they are able to use this strategy is due to the economic status of the hotel, meaning the establishment has enough income to risk losing some customers due to their increase in prices, in order to keep their high quality foods. The mid- and low-tier hotels, however, do not have that option. Instead, the mid-tier hotels looked for alternative, less expensive foods in order to save some money, although they were not able to avoid increasing their costs on the menu. A similar situation occurred with the low-tier hotels. The low-tier hotel decided to use food imported from mainland China while also attempting to increase prices. Along with that, they also invited their suppliers to decrease their prices so the restaurant can still work with them and the supplier won’t lose a customer (Mackenzie, 2011).

The difference of economic status in establishments often defines what strategies are going to be used in order to combat issues like rising food prices. Coming back to the issue of tariffs, “some of the cost of the tariffs is likely to be absorbed and not passed on to consumers, as retailers re-evaluate pricing strategies and determine how long the inventory they already have in the country might last” (Severson, 2025, para. 8). In any leadership position, your job is to make decisions based on the needs of your business as well as your consumers. In the case of rising food costs, people in the food industry must decide what they want to spend their money on. There are many variations of choices they can make, including whether owners want to risk losing customers due to an increase in menu prices because they want to keep purchasing the high quality food or if they need to change their supplier to a cheaper one in order to keep the prices from affecting their customers. In this case though, they could risk losing customers due to the decrease in quality. These are very difficult decisions that will vary from one place to another, depending on their financial status and priorities.

One strategy that helps prevent consumers from experiencing these price increases while still enjoying the same level of quality in the restaurant setting is decreasing the portion sizes. “These days, it’s easy for restaurants to make portions bigger without actually spending more on ingredients by bulking up dishes with low-cost items like pasta” (Soloman, 2022, para. 5). However, larger portions often promote greater amounts of food waste as well as reduce the quality. Instead of sacrificing the quality, restaurants will often reduce the portion size to keep costs down in order to save their level of quality. This is a common strategy that is used to manage costs in the food industry. In fact, “even restaurants that are known for big portions like The Cheesecake Factory have started to offer smaller sizes” (Soloman, 2022, para. 12).

No matter your level of status, the more valuable something becomes, the more you want to savor it. In this case, food becoming more valuable as the availability of nutrient-dense foods decrease, leads establishments to find ways to decrease the amount of food they waste to save money. By decreasing portion sizes, it increases the amount of usage a person can get out of a product. Limiting food waste is another way restaurants can use their inventory to their full advantage, although sometimes it is unavoidable.

Impacts of Food waste

High-end restaurants value quality over quantity, priding themselves for their presentation, gourmet dishes, and an experience you will never forget. A restaurant takes special care with their selection of foods, being sure to buy the best foods around, from local farms to importing goods from other countries. A “poor selection of food items can lead to waste, as not all parts of the input can be utilized” (Charlebois, 2015, p. 282). The restaurant industry needs a lot of organization when it comes to how it manages food. Part of that process is finding out how much food to order. It can be difficult to identify exactly how much food needs to be purchased as there are a number of possibilities that could factor into the amount of customers brought in on any given day. One of those factors include un-expected weather.

Let’s take a moment to paint a picture in your mind on how this can impact a restaurant’s ability to accurately predict their supply and demand. Imagine you are an owner of a restaurant that just had a shipment of food delivered. You know you have ordered enough to last you until the next shipment, given that your predictions on the number of customers walking through the door are correct. The kitchen staff had been working to prepare food for the following day, however an unexpected snow storm had come, leading the restaurant to close for the duration of the storm. Thanks to that storm, no one is coming into the business and the food stock is left unused. Because the food was prepped and ready to go for the next day, unforeseen fluctuations in customers can contribute to a greater amount of food being wasted through spoilage. Because it was not anticipated, making predictions on the amount of inventory you may need is very difficult and hard to control (Charlebois, 2015, p. 282).

But that is only one of many situations that explains why so much food gets wasted. The type of restaurant can also determine the amount of food waste. For example, fine dining restaurants spend time carefully selecting their ingredients to be sure they are fresh and appealing to the eye. “Because of the tolerances set by retail chains, a high proportion of blemished fruit goes to waste (juice, factory or dumped)” (Duarte Alonso, 2013, p. 11). Due to their reputation of high quality food and presentation, skilled chefs are hired to cut and carve foods into the desired shape and size. But what do they do with the scraps? “Often a chef will recombine leftover materials to form the basis of other dishes, as is the case in specials, stocks and soups. [However] losses can occur during preparation when items are excessively trimmed” (Charlebois, 2015, p. 282). These losses come at a price. The more food a restaurant wastes, the less food there is available to be served to a customer.

With a situation like this, fine dining restaurants are more likely to avoid these problems of excessive trimming by hiring those highly skilled chefs. However, even the most skilled of people make mistakes. Due to scenarios like the two above, food managers must predict and prepare for events like this to happen. This can lead them to over-order food which in turn can cause them to waste more food than was intended, contributing to increased prices spent on food.

Conclusion

When someone uses the phrase “we eat like kings,” it implies that the meal will contain big portions of high quality ingredients and will be one of the best meals you have had in a long while. However, you have probably noticed that when you dine at an expensive restaurant, it is the exact opposite of what you would expect a king to eat, with delicate foods that come in portions half the size of your plate, meant to savor and enjoy. Where you find the king size portions are in fast food restaurants and buffets at a more affordable price. It seems there has been a shift between the correlation of economic status and portion size, although the relationship between cost and quality stays consistent, with quality increasing the price.

Financial status is a big contributing factor as the decreased availability of nutritious foods makes them more expensive to the people who want them. As many people in low-income communities are unable to afford healthy meals, it leads them to be drawn to the cheaper, processed foods, like chips and bread. As we have seen throughout this chapter, when the availability of food decreases, it impacts the strategies food establishments already have in place to keep them financially stable. This in turn affects the prices on a menu. Food not being available to everyone when they need it is a big issue and is how food insecurity is introduced.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines food insecurity “as a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (HHS, n.d.). Being food insecure doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going hungry, although that is a possible outcome. Instead it means that you have less access to a variety of good quality food (HHS, n.d.). The lower your income-level is, the more difficult it is to have access to those healthy foods. With restaurants needing to increase their menu prices due to the decrease in high nutrient crops and changes in trade conditions, the number of people with food insecurity is increasing dramatically. In 2023, 86.5 percent (114.6 million) of U.S. households claimed they were food secure, dropping significantly from 87.2 percent (115.8 million) U.S. households in 2022 (Rabbitt, 2025). In just one year, about 1.2 million people have lost the ability to afford healthy food. These are the consequences of increasing the cost of nutritious foods.

However, contrary to popular belief, raising food prices does have some benefits. As food loses nutritional value, it is gaining price value as the years pass. Wanting to protect their valuable food stocks, restaurants are becoming more aware of the amount that is going to waste. With decreased portion sizes to utilize the food available and only eating the amounts we need to stay full, the globe can hopefully begin to see a decrease in obesity rates and improve the overall health of the human race. This could be the start of one of numerous solutions to creating a more stable environment by decreasing the amount of processed foods and increasing the availability of nutrient-dense foods.

There is still much research that needs to be done to find out how exactly the rising food costs impacts a restaurants menu prices, as it is unclear how restaurants are being affected due to lack of information. However, there is enough research to conclude that the increase in prices is affecting everyone and that is worrisome.

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