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IrelandThe Onion asks "Should Food Cost More?"
Its fictional pundits agree groceries should be less affordable, but one panelist has a different proposal: give people less food.
The Onion
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 662,731 views a day, 26 times a normal first day on this channel (25,783).
Should Food Cost More?
Video summary
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- 0:11Stand-in host Melinda Miller asks the fictional panel whether food should cost more.
- 0:25Duncan Birch argues that the possibility of higher prices is itself a reason to raise them.
- 0:58Joyce Cucchiara offers a competing proposal: unchanged prices, but less food.
- 1:34The panel extends its pricing ambitions to all food, including produce grown at home.
- 2:47A question about Copeland's salary sets up the panel's final exchange.
The apparent voice of reason arrives with an objection: food prices should stay where they are. Then Joyce Cucchiara explains her alternative. "There should be less food for the same price."
That is the range of opinion available in The Onion's "Should Food Cost More?", a satirical news-panel sketch that collected roughly 436,000 views in eleven hours, already far beyond the channel's usual first-day audience.
The fictional In The Know panel treats making groceries harder to afford as a shared goal, with only the details left to debate. Duncan Birch, introduced as the author of The Vegetable Myth, supplies the economic theory: "Food can cost more, so it should cost more. That's simple economics."
Mary Fichandler takes the argument beyond the supermarket. "There are people growing peppers in their yard for free, and that has to end yesterday." Meanwhile, political analyst Jason Copeland finds a professional benefit in higher prices: they give him something to discuss.
Viewers extend the sketch's logic into imaginary shareholder meetings and proposals to stop producing food altogether. Others single out the exchange about where all the extra money would go. Birch's answer, delivered with the certainty of someone who considers the question settled: "It would go to the food."
Published on Trari
Where next?
What viewers say
"where will the money go?" "to the food"
@duytdlSee it on YouTubeThis is how I imagine every shareholder meeting goes in every industry
@sam.4104See it on YouTubeIt should not cost more, we should outright stop making it. How are we going to increase shareholder value if we are stuffing our faces with food all the time
@Ymrut24See it on YouTube
3 more comments
I love her confidence when she says, "There are people growing peppers in their yard for free, and that has to end yesterday."
@JesseGriffin9See it on YouTubeGreat idea! Our national money hole isn't going to fill up by itself!
@tony_antony_lemonySee it on YouTubeYes, we need a food tax to discourage people from eating food.
@UndergroundMaster-u7jSee it on YouTube
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- Channel
- The Onion
- Subscribers
- 3,290,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 3,322,418
- Channel views, pace per day
- 407,579 (on a normal day: 368,367)
- Video published
- October 27, 2026
- Video views so far
- 435,944 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 662,731
The numbers
The sketch has already drawn far more views than a usual first day for The Onion. Its projected full-day total is an estimate, not a completed day's count.
💡 Test your knowledge
What is the title of Duncan Birch's fictional book in the sketch?
Birch is introduced on screen as the author of The Vegetable Myth.