German Food Prices and Energy

Tuesday, August 23, 2016   Neugraben, Germany

Here in a Hamburg suburb, there is Kaufland, a big store of groceries, housewares, some clothes, hardware, liquor, and most memorably, a hot dog kiosk.  The wieners are almost twice the length of the buns, and thicker than Canadian wieners, a good 1.20 Euro deal we have eaten more than once.
Multiply that by 1.5 to see an equivalent Canadian price.

Multiply these Euro grocery prices by 1.5 to make Canadian prices:

500g ground pork:   1.59
200g tilset cheese:   0.99
1 kg nectarines:       1.39
300g liverwurst:      1.49
12 rolls x 200 sheet
 toilet paper:            1.95

Now go to the Portugese section of Hamburg, near the harbor, for a 9-Euro, thin-crust pizza about 30 cm across.  Or go down the Elbe River, which we did by train, to Cuxhaven, for an even better pizza the same size for about 7.50 Euros.

In a Berlin cafe, my sweet tooth got three glazed, danish-shaped pastries covered in walnut pieces for 3 Euros.  Each is a full snack, and I needed two days to eat the three.

Back here, the Turkish grocery store near Kaufman had a dozen kinds of Turkish delight, 200g per box of 30 or so cubes 1.5 cm on the side, for 1.99.  Pop goes the pancreas.  I also bought, for 3.49, a 750g jar of nutella, to give to the nutella-loving owner whose house we stay in until her return by month's end.

There is a 0.25-Euro deposit on most non-alcoholic beverage containers, and some alcohol containers.  There are glass and plastic bins for them.  I saw in Germany four-part garbage cans, one part for garbage, one for glass, one for paper and cardboard, and one for metal, I think.

One standout item is windmills, many, some alone, some in groups.  Their three 8m blades describe an arc whose peak is more than 30m above the ground.

I learned months before I came here that Germany has more renewable energy than most countries.  It is reducing its nuclear energy.  A few months ago, its grid ran for two straight days on renewables alone.

I saw many bicycles here, and a still higher concentration of bicycles in Berlin.  This country of more than 80 million, on a land mass many times smaller than Canada, which has fewer than half as many people, seems well fed and powered.