Get Ready to Pay Even MORE for Food. USA TODAY: Wheat goes above $10 a bushel

[El Pinko]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2008-02-05-wheat-ten-dollars_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Wheat goes above $10 a bushel


By Sue Kirchhoff, USA TODAY
U.S. wheat prices surged to more than $10 a bushel on Chicago futures exchanges Tuesday, while hitting a record on the smaller Minneapolis Grain Exchange, as Canada reported tight stockpiles and millers scrambled for supply.
Overall, wheat prices have doubled since last June at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which owns the Chicago Board of Trade. Prices have been pushed higher by surging world demand and bad weather in some major producing nations.

"For the near-term price, it's still heading higher," says Joe Victor, vice president of marketing at Allendale, a commodity research firm. He says prices will stay elevated until the markets get a better handle on potential production in coming months. "If we have good weather, plenty of plantings, then there's likely a price correction," Victor says. "If it's bad weather … (prices will) continue their upward trends."

....

Trading was influenced by a Canadian government report showing the wheat supply in that nation plummeting 30% from December 2006 to December 2007. The sharp drop was mainly caused by a more than 20% dip in wheat production last year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects the U.S. wheat surplus this year to be the smallest in 60 years. Despite higher prices, U.S. plantings of winter wheat rose only about 4% from last year. Farmers had been expected to increase plantings by far more.

[CoffeeCat]

1. The prices of many, many items...

...in the grocery store have gone up 100 percent.

I am an avid couponer, and I pay close attention to prices. No one is
talking about this dramatic spike in grocery prices. I never see the numbers,
which I clearly notice every week.

Milk has almost doubled. Eggs have more-than doubled. Now, bread will increase substantially.

I've noticed dramatic increases (75-100 percent) in everyday items like coffee creamer, pretzels, shampoo,
fresh fruits/veggies, soup, chicken, ground turkey, baking mixes, spaghetti sauce, etc. etc.

The media, or the government--or whoever--is hiding these horrendous price increases.

It's totally insane.

I really don't understand how people--who don't coupon--are surviving. It's just NUTS.

[TomClash]

2. The silver lining would be . . .

. . . maybe Fat Pig America would wake up and eat a little less.

[Donk Yore]

3. I think a lot of the obesity problem

can be traced, not back to the amounts that people eat, but the types of food they eat. Have you read the labels on prepared foods? High fructose corn syrup, MSG's, 100's of empty calories loaded in to make food taste better. It's well known that those who have less opportunity to make choices due to pricing eat much more carbohydrate laden foods.

That said, prices are getting to the point of pain for many.

[melody]

5. Obesity is a very complex condition

It's only partially about what is eaten.

[Donk Yore]

6. I understand that

thanks for pointing it out.

[TomClash]

9. No question price increases are a dark cloud

And I agree about types of food.

But it is undeniable that Americans eat way too much. No one in the world eats as much.

[melody]

4. No, the silver lining would be *maybe* people would be humane enough not to call people names

But I don't expect that from anyone anymore.

[TomClash]

10. Point taken - very sorry

I am duly admonished.

But it is clearly true that Americans eat too much. The portions and types of food are absurd.

[melody]

12. *Some* Americans may eat too much

Some Canadians and every other type of person eat too much. To pin it solely on Americans is continuing a
very nasty stereotype that is no more accurate than those passed around in right-wing Washington DC about the
French.

The portions and types of food have nothing to do with obesity. There are many, many very slender people
who eat that, too. Everywhere. Including British Columbia.

Sorry, I appreciate the apology, but this kind of post infuriates me. In my field I'm very sensitive to the
furthering of new forms of prejudice and this is one of them.

[El Pinko]

15. I disagree that portion size and type of food have nothing to do with it.

I went from 100 lbs overweight to healthy and trim by switching from the typical American diet of prepackaged crap and meat, potatoes and tacos in big portions to a vegetable-centric diet in smaller portions and have kept it off.

Types of food and portions have everything to do with it.

There are people who eat fairly little and still don't lose weight, but they are in the distinct minority.


And saying that eating too many calories or unhealthy foods makes people fat is NOT a form of prejudice.


I do agree that making it just about Americans is inaccurate - Canada and the UK both have rampant obesity as well.


The only slender people who eat like that are people who exercise a lot and burn it off, IMO.

[melody]

19. My 160 pound friend eats 3000 calories a day at fast food pits

Sorry, but he does. He doesn't exercise any more than I do.

I've lost and gained hundreds of pounds of weight. Trust me when I tell you, the weight will be back. Yes, I know, I said
it wouldn't, too, but it came back.

I'm a vegetarian and I exercise daily and I'm fat.

>And saying that eating too many calories or unhealthy foods makes people fat is NOT a form of prejudice.

I didn't say that. I simply said it was incorrect. Those are factors in many cases of obesity but not all and even then they're not the only factors.

That said, I went against my rule of discussing fat people on message boards. Too much bigotry and misinformation surrounding the topic -- it's like discussing gay people with the far-right religious community.

[El Pinko]

21. Since when does being a vegetarian make people thin?

You can get fat on anything if you eat too many calories.

A 6' tall man can eat 3000 calories and stay at 160.

A 5' tall woman can only eat about 1900 to maintain a healthy weight of 110.


And for every decade we age, we can eat 100 calories LESS, because our bodies burn less the older we get.


I'm sorry if you think it's bigoted, but my experience is that I have NEVER not lost weight from eating less.

I have never gained weight without having overeaten. EVER.




I appreciate your defeatist sentiments, but you can keep them.

I am on a permanent calorie-restricted regiment and have no intention of ever getting off it. I eat what I like, but I keep very strict track of what I eat.

I like being healthy. I like feeling good. I like not having GERD and ankle pain. I like having my cholesterol low. I will not give that up for some statistic about 95% of people regaining their weight, anymore than I would take up smoking again.

[melody]

23. I HOPE you beat the trend, but ...

It's not defeatism, it's realism. Yo-yo dieting is as destructive to the body as sustained obesity.

On that note, this will be my last post to the thread. I sincerely hope you'll remain thin. It's a very
hard life being fat. BTW, my cholesterol is low.

[TomClash]

16. "The portions and types of food have nothing to do with obesity"

This is fantasy and people who are obese are deluding themselves if they think that portion and food type are irrelevant.

Yes, there are slender Americans and fat Canadians. But go to almost any European country and you will see a greater percentage of thin people. This is true even in places where food is worshipped.

[melody]

18. Not true- and the fantasy that thin people have that they're somehow less to blame for consumption

... is an unfair but persistent one.

There are skinny people who consume far more fatty foods than fat people. If you don't believe it, you haven't read
the research.

In Europe, you will also find a greater percentage of people who don't have our ethnic groupings. I'm part Cherokee.
Native Americans have a greater level of obesity for a number of reasons, many genetic.

Sorry if I rained on your "gross awful Americans" parade, but it simply isn't true.

[TomClash]

20. Then you should change the Wikipedia entry on obesity

Maybe I'm wrong and I'm certainly no expert, but I'm pretty skeptical that most Americans are overweight because of genetic makeup.

[melody]

22. Wikipedia has a lot of morons adding content ... they aren't experts

And the data from our own government is highly suspect.

I didn't say we are overweight because of genetic makeup ... I said it was a factor. Obesity is complex.
I think a portion of the problem IS poor eating habits (and having to kill ourselves working then opting for
fast food), but there are many other factors that all go into the mix. Genes is one factor.

Genetics is directly implicated in everything from OCD to alcoholism to drug addiction. We only refuse to
accept it when we're talking about fat people. That's where bias intrudes.

Incidentally, it's always struck me that for some people, binge eating may be an OCD illness similar to Trichotillomania
but we feel more predisposed toward hating fat people than we do people who compulsively pull out their hair.

Such is the nature of prejudice when it wades into medicine unfortunately.

[Pakhet]

25. it's hard to buy meat and fresh veggies

when you only have $14 to spend on groceries for two weeks, after paying the bills
ramen is only $1.50 a 12-pack at that nasty wal place

[SmokingJacket]

7. Fresh fruit and vegetables have skyrocketed.

It's getting harder and harder to eat healthily. Bring on the beans!

[melody]

13. Lentils -- eat them and you don't have to flatter thing king, quoteth Diogenes

I'm afraid that old quote is going to become very apt. lol

[SoCalDem]

14. $10.12 for 3 tomatoes last week

granted, they were big ones, but when one was rotten the very next day, I fished out my receipt and was astonished to see what they actually had cost me..

Since I usually chop them for salsa, or salads, I bought the smaller ones this week :)

[kestrel91316]

24. That'll learn ya to buy 'maters at Whole Paycheck or Gelson's, lol!

Tomatoes are ALWAYS gonna be expensive out of season (how far did they import them from?). I buy only in season now.

Cheaper produce can be had at our many ethnic markets, like Valley Produce in Reseda, or Woodland Hills Market (it's Middle Eastern), or Vallarta (hispanic chain), or wherever.

$10 for 3 tomatoes. Pardon me while I go have an attack of the vapors......Oy.

[ThomWV]

8. The price of wheat is not going up, this is the value of the dollar going down

If you want to understand the 'new world order' the very first thing you need to understand is that our agricultural products are priced as a result of world demand and the value of the dollar on the international market. The dollar isn't worth much so it takes a lot more of them to buy a bushel of wheat.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. More people and less food produced...

seems like prices would tend to rise. It's a bitch on top of other price rises and falling incomes, but fully to be expected.

Somewhere along the line we are going to have to make some major changes in our food supply and distibution, and it will not be easy or pretty. As much as we may reasonably despise food processors and factory farmers, they do employ millions of people. And, as much as some may demonize trade with Mexico and China, they are customers for our surplus food. Or non-surplus food.

Food is now a global commodity, and as Asian and African populations grow and eat better it pressures global supplies.

(We were better off when the rest of the world was starving-- should we go back to that to keep the price of bread down by a few cents?)

[earth mom]

17. I'm still in sticker shock from a grocery store visit yesterday.

I told my kid that it looks like we're gonna have to stop eating! ;)

All the more reason to get the garden up & running this spring like we'd planned. We also plan to stock up on a bunch of stuff too.

But the bottom line is that we are all SO TOTALLY SCREWED! :argh:

[orleans]

26. thank god i don't buy it by the bushel! n/t