One weird trick to solve the affordability crisis

Illustration: Álvaro Bernis

Nov 27th 2025|5 min read

Americans have a knack for turning the price of food into national theatre. In 1916 housewives boycotted “egg speculators” for daring to charge 36.5 cents a dozen. Three decades later President Harry Truman urged America to observe Meatless Tuesdays and Eggless Thursdays, earning backlash when the White House itself had to forgo pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. By the early 1970s, with eggs pushing 80 cents a dozen and beef edging past a dollar a pound, suburban mothers marched under banners like “Save Our Sanity” and “Boycott All Meat”. One Utahn vowed to start trapping starlings before paying supermarket prices; a New Yorker resigned herself to “more tuna-fish casserole”. President Richard Nixon tried to quell the revolt with price freezes on beef, pork and lamb. Shelves emptied, inflation eventually surged.