When people got really stuck, they would cut out other essential costs like house insurance. Mothers also went without in order to feed their children, Professor Parnell said.
"There is a tendency to compromise on the food budget to accommodate other things, but there's a limit beyond which you can't go,'' she said.
"But if it gets extremely severe, well yes, you can go hungry.''
Wellington dietician Vicki Robinson, a public health nutrition expert, said price increases were a barrier to people on low incomes eating healthily, and could lead to a long-term increase in obesity and other health problems.
"If you don't have a lot of money and prices of meat go up, it's probably going to drive you to either have less meat, or it's going to drive you to choose less expensive choices, which tend to be fattier.''
But Nutrition Foundation dietitian Sarah Hanrahan said it was encouraging that the cost of staples like bread, fruit and vegetables had remained fairly steady.
"The only thing that had gone up substantially was milk, out of that staple range.''
Ms Hanrahan said the prices showed eating seasonally was important. She cited the cost of pumpkin, which dropped 54 per cent on last year to $2.31 a kilogram.
Food and Grocery Council chief executive Katherine Rich said rising commodity prices had placed many food companies under immense pressure, particularly those using dairy ingredients.
But with supermarkets calling for a halt to price increases, the costs had mostly been absorbed by food companies rather than consumers.
"There has been such rampant discounting within the grocery sector that on some categories, prices have gone backwards,'' she said.
"But over a period of time, many of these costs will have to be passed on.''
Beef and Lamb communications manager Kim Doran said beef and lamb price rises were relatively small and most people would probably not even notice.
"They will be buying per serve rather than per kilo, and retailers will do their best to make cuts meet the price points of their specific customers.''
Federated Farmers Waikato president James Houghton said the rate of inflation was at the same level as the food price increase, or 1.4 per cent, so producers and consumers were on an even keel.
"The dairy industry is very aware of making its product accessible and this is why dairy farmers support and understand the New Zealand consumers as we are consumers as well. A good example is the initiative to get dairy products into schools at no cost to the kids or the schools.''
Food prices went up 1.4 per cent in the year to November, according to Statistics New Zealand's food price index.
Where the increases were:
* Meat, poultry and fish - up 1.7 per cent
* Fruit and vegetables - down 0.4 per cent
* Grocery foods - up 1.8 per cent
* Non-alcoholic drinks - up 2.3 per cent
* Restaurant and ready-to-eat meals - up 1.4 per cent
What drove the changes:
* Milk, cheese and egg prices were up 7.1 per cent - the highest since December 2011, but 2.9 per cent below the July 2011 peak
* Fresh milk prices went up 6.7 per cent, but were still 3.7 per cent lower than the February 2011 peak
* The drop in fruit and vegetable prices was influenced by the cost of pumpkin (down 54 per cent), carrots (down 8.8 per cent) and avocados (down 10 per cent)
* Confectionary, nuts and snacks dropped 3.8 per cent, thanks to cheaper chocolate (down 5.9 per cent), snack foods (down 4.4 per cent) and nuts (down 8.1 per cent)
* Bread and cereal prices were 3.4 per cent below the February 2012 peak
