Welcome to the “budget expected to inflict pain on Australians across the board” as characterised SBS. Yes, it’s the one day of the year where journalists whom are otherwise disconnected from fiscal policy are legally obliged to slip the word “hip pocket” into every single article that they produce.

My work here is done. So how will the budget affect food?

Rumoured changes to the taxation of wine have not eventuated. Seemingly, the only immediate alcohol related impact is going to be the hangovers from hastily-conceived, Twitter-fueled Budget drinking games that occurred during the budget proceedings. If you’re on Twitter, you’ll always be able to find somebody to drink with and if you don’t know what a Twitter is, your liver is already one step ahead.

Maybe increased TAFE and tertiary funding combined with the increasing visibility of cooks on TV will provoke a new flood of better-educated Australian chefs and artisanal food producers. I can only hope.

Since the onset of the most recent global financial crisis, there has been incessant chatter on the Internets about how the crisis will affect diets in the West. Conspicuously consuming inconspicuous foods is in; extravagant cuisine is to be curbed. Rich people rediscovering the food that poor people ate before poor people discovered deep-frying and corn syrup. Fast food providers are predicted to prosper while the market for fine dining tightens up. Americans have been retreating into stewing cuts of meat and away from giant T-bones. Recession gardens are beginning to bear fruit and veg.

We’re yet to see fundamental, earthshaking changes to the food system or any of the adjustments take years to provoke. The trends in eating predicted seem to cobble together the experiences of a handful of eaters but the underlying sentiment seems best expressed by a quote in a recent NY Times article on the new expressions of restraint amongst the luxury set:

"It’s kind of like we all went overboard,” said Ms. Taylor, 33. “And we’re trying to get back to where we should have been."

Are you paring back to where you feel like you should have been?

Personally, I’m a terrible example for any sort of measured study of recession-affected eating, because for the most part, I already eat like I’m from the 1930s. Even though a huge amount of my disposable income goes towards food and drink, I eat most meals at home and I’ve inherited the toxic aversion to discarding food from my grandparents. Limp vegies go into soup and my refrigerator is empty but for several mustards at least once a week. I grow my own vegies even though I know it doesn’t necessarily make economic sense to do so.

I take making food from scratch to foolish extremes: I’ve been seriously tossing around the idea of making my own Vegemite from leftover brewing yeast. I suspect from the looks of revulsion and dread on the faces of my loved ones that these are not the behaviours of a regular eater.

So I throw it out to you: Has the wider financial crisis change the way that you eat? Has Wayne Swan’s second federal budget made you hungry?