Has food become absurdly expensive?

Being one of the more frugal members of this board, my total yearly expenses for everything before 2020 added up to 11k, 3k of which was food. That was 27% of my expenses going to food.Due to the massive rise in food prices in early 2020, I had to increase my food budget by 50% and decrease the quality of my food. My total yearly expenses increased from 11k to 12.5k, with food now accounting for 36% of my total expenses.Now it’s 2021. Prices have increased a bit further, but really it’s the lowered food quality that has become unsustainable. I’ve had to raise my food budget again. I wanted to raise it from 4.5k to 6k, but oddly that’s just not making that much of a difference, so I’m thinking of raising it to 7.5k (about 20.50 dollars a day). I’ve also raised by entertainment expenses by 450 dollars a year (I got into photography, shit’s expensive). My total yearly expenses now add up to 16k (up from 11k just two years before!), 47% of which goes to food.ExpenseYearly AmountPercentageFood7.5k47%Housing2.5k15.5%Transportation2k12.5%Electricity1.3k8%Computer, communications, misc1k6.25%Entertainment7004.5%Extra, unforeseen1k6.25%Total16k100%My total cost of living going up 45% in two years is already kind of crazy, but almost half of my expenses going to food alone seems absurd…Is it just me? via /r/PersonalFinanceCanada https://ift.tt/3zUrXyI