Food – For working families, a skyrocketing grocery bill is one of the most ever-present of reminders that they have been making do with less. Each week, it seems, the price of staple food - everything from eggs to milk to cereal - edges up higher.
Much of the problem with the skyrocketing cost of food can be directly attibuted to teh mandate to use ethanol as a gasoline additive. It is expensive to make -- in dollars and energy costs. It takes about .9 gallons of fossil fuel to make one gallon of ethanol that has considerably fewer BTU's than the fossil fuels it replaces.
Because of the demand for ethanol, the demand for corn to make it is growing making corn not only more expensive but not available as feed for livestock or food for humans. Again, because the demand for corn is so great, farmers are planting more corn and less wheat driving up the cost of wheat as well. These factors drive up the cost of all food.
Add to that the cost of diesel fuel ($4.24 in CT today) which is necessary to get these food stuffs to the grocery stores and the cost of food has truly skyrocketed.
The two steps that must be taken are 1. give up the ethanol dream -- it's a true nightmare, and 2. do something about the commodities market which is driving up the cost of oil even beyond what the oil companies are charging.
Do you expect any members of Congress to step forward and admit they contributed to the escalating food prices with the sudsidies they passed for the corn to ethanol debacle??
hell no!
It took them almost ten years to allow the oil companies to stop adding MTBE to gasoline even though they knew from the first year that it decreased fuel efficiency, made the pump attendants sick, increaseed noxious fumes and emissions and fouled ground water.
THEN.. after years of the oil companies (and others who were deemed anti-environmentalists) begging to allow them to NOT use it, many were fined for the cleanup.
Government is awesome!
As I posted on another thread:
The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/opinion/01hed...
Like all centralized planning, the consumers are hurt
But the prices still aren't high enough for California
California Ag Secretary visits Cuba
America's top food-producing state has sent its first official agricultural trade mission to Havana to show its powdered milk and dairy products, as well a wide array of fruits, vegetables, nuts, dates, rice and cotton to the communist government.
http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=14963
What do you think this will do to prices in the US?
Why do Americans eat like crap? Because they choose to. Because they are busy/lazy.
It is cheaper and healthier to buy source foods and to prepare them from scratch. Pre-packaged and processed foods are full of additives like fats, sugars, and preservatives.
For example, a home grown tomato is infinitely more nutritious and delicious than a store bought tomato.
I see what others buy at the grocery store. It is mostly pre-packaged garbage. Potato chips, Stouffers meals, etc, etc. You can make home baked fries for a fraction of the cost of a bag of potato chips.
The bottom line is that if a person wants to eat healthfully and economically, they can do it.
I think you may have exaggerated a bit on the tomato deal. A tomato is still a tomato, whether grown in a hot house or in your back yard. They HAVE to be nutritionally similar, or they wouldn't both be able to grow from the same seeds. And, although you may be correct about the lower cost of making food from "scratch" - that is a lot more practical when someone is home all day and has the time (and inclination) to DO it. Most families these days can't afford the luxury of having someone who is ABLE to earn a wage staying home all day. Unless the child care costs exceed the wage earned. Then, who can cook with that many kids to look after? That sort of thing was easier to do back when life was simpler, kids actually HELPED out, and the average commute each way wasn't up over 40 minutes. Personally, I like to make fries at home -- but most nights I just don't have A) the time or B) the energy. 'Course I'm not 20 something any more either... {;>D)=
Both of my parents worked and there were six kids in my family. We had made from scratch meals every night. I cooked for the entire family of eight when I turned 12 years old and continued on throughout high school. When I got home from school, I started cooking. Priorities (choices) have shifted since then. Parents are sill working but kids are out skate boarding or sequestered in their bedrooms playing video games. Parents come home and pop a tray o' chemicals in the microwave and call it dinner.
And a tomato is NOT a tomato even though the source seeds may be similar. Tomatoes, for example, are picked green so they won't be damaged during shipment. Then they are sprayed with ethane gas to turn them red so they LOOK like a tomato. The tomatoes you buy in the store in the summer look and taste just like the ones you buy in the winter because the are the same. The tomato you get out of your garden looks, feels, smells, and tastes better.
Yep - back when I was a kid, we NEVER ate out. MAYBE a couple times a YEAR. School banquets and the like. On a rare occasion, we'd go to McDonald's on the way to or from the lake. I'll agree that home grown tomatoes - which I have had many, many times as well as peas, beans, carrots, etc. - often (but not always) taste better. But, even when picked green and forced to ripen - they STILL have essentially the same nutritional value. And often have a nicer texture, appearance and less insect damage. Shop carefully and you can GET vine ripened tomatoes in the store. They are perhaps a BIT more expensive, but not a lot. These days, it's ALL expensive. Where you went wrong was having 5 siblings. Also, not screwing up dinner so badly the FIRST time that no one would ever even LET you cook again.. {;>D)=
The quantity of siblings was a little out of my hands. At any given time, most of us wished our parents hadn't had so many kids. I think they should have stopped at four. (Guess which number I am).
You are right. I should have messed up the first time. Darn. Where were you when I needed you? :)
We don't eat out. We order a pizza once a month, if our income allows, and if the kids are EXTRA good. Other than that, we shop at Save A Lot and hit the sales of the bigger chains, because Save A Lot doesn't always have the cheapest food, anymore.
It seems that NO store consistently has the best prices anymore. Sam's club USED to be significantly cheaper on pretty much EVERYTHING. Now, not always. Particularly if you are buying 5 pounds of tomatoes and end up throwing 3 pounds out. Some of the stuff at Sam's IS still cheaper pretty consistently though. Bananas at $ 1.28 for THREE pounds. Quart of 1/2 and 1/2 for $ 1.19 - lettuce $ 2.29 for TWO heads. Canned goods usually end up cheaper as you buy 12 or so at a time. If you have access to a Sam's (or Costco - pretty much same thing) I suggest you shop (carefully) there as you CAN save some significant money. Oh - and the MEAT there is usually a fair bit cheaper, and I find it quite acceptable in quality. Sometimes it's ABOUT as cheap at Food4Less, but I don't think the quality is quite as good. If you are REALLY hurting, L'il Ceasar's Pizza at about $5.00 each is really cheap and somewhat edible. Beats a $24.00 Home Run Inn pizza if you are broke. Doesn't taste the same, but...
My biggest problem is that before the food stamps kicked in we did not have enough money at one time to buy what was needed to make things from scratch. Others were never taught how to cook a proper meal.
That will probably get worse before it gets better. The de facto standard where BOTH parents work has been in place long enough by now that the children of those parents are now having kids. Our daughters, for example, can barely boil water without burning it. Although at least one of them has HAD to learn lately as an economizing measure. HER kids may end up being better prepared than she was. Even in cases where both parents work and still (usually) eat at home, there often isn't time to TEACH the kids how to cook anything.
I wonder how many oil executives and Sheiks are cutting back on groceries? The ethanol debacle is no doubt a PART of the increase in food prices. But, in truth, I think we probably do - or did - need to go through the ethanol phase if for no other reason than to encourage the research needed to develop something better. Now, it's time for that "better" thing. Hemp, or some such maybe. It's time to get OFF the corn to ethanol wagon. I think pretty much everyone knows by now that it's a looser. But the other - bigger - thing affecting food price, of course, is fuel costs. Costs more to run a tractor, a combine, a dryer, an elevator, etc. etc. And, of course, it costs more to get the food trucked to your market. Trucking companies are now charging a fuel surcharge around an additional 35% (or more) of their normal rate. Of course, that gets divided up into the entire load of freight, but it still adds up.
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This is why I donate food to the food bank! I bought a roast for a senior one day, because she had picked up the package of meat, then after looking at her stuff in the basket, she had put the roast back on the meat counter.
No one should go hungry!
Thanks pop!
GOD BLESS YOU!!!
Over the Christmas holiday many families were nearly starving. My kids were eating PB&J three meals a day and ramen with their dinner sandwich and ramen. We got free bread from our local mission and peanut butter and jelly from my mom ( it is all she could do, even) Our mission had very little to give in their holiday baskets, because the ppl who used to donate were now coming to ask for food!I recently got food stamps, so we are doing better now. I still pray for those who suppoedly have "too much income" to get aid from the state.
TAW-
that's the best.
Thanks, walden3! I wish that I could afford to do more!
Bless your soul TAW. : )