The government subsidies bio-fuel which is technically a losing proposition at this point if it were in a true free market. Instead we allow government to help fund a losing propositiion because they want to win votes from farmers who are less than 2% of the population while the whole process raises our food prices and those of the world. Simple economics commented above is right but we seem to fail ourselves by ignoring our God given gift of common sense.

If you want to help the real hungry, volunteer at a soup kitchen. Or, contact your local grocery store or Panera. They often donate their leftover baked goods daily. They need volunteers to come in (Panera requires that you represent an organization, like your parish, or Third Order Franciscans) and bag up food (at closing time for Panera or the next morning at some grocery stores) to donate to nonprofit organizations. Our local Panera only has groups coming in several days a week, so the leftovers are thrown away sometimes. (It’s sometimes difficult to get shelters to take the miche loaves, but I’m glad that our local poor are able to be a little picky.) It helps work off my ’stockpile’, too, lugging around large bags filled with bagels.

I’m not specifically promoting Panera; it’s just that this is the one I’m involved with.

So you’re talking the “food prices rising diet.” I’m paying a bit more attention to sales and coupons, but so far have adjusted by buying less at a time and shopping more frequently to lessen the chance of wasting food. My preferred brand of yogurt is on sale, 20 for $10, but I only bought a few because I don’t eat yogurt every day and the containers sometimes run to the back of the fridge and hide.

Conventional wisdom is that it’s time to stockpile food, which I’m not doing. The only time I have ever experienced food shortages, I was in Yugoslavia and didn’t know what to expect the stores to have, so didn’t know what was missing. I do remember that fruit was typically limited to apples, oranges and grapefruit; bananas occasionally showed up at $1/each. Spoiled American that I am, I bought them anyway; I don’t like oranges or grapefruit so was otherwise left with apples.

Nan,

I was more referring to how I was going to blunt the rising food costs in my house. I guess I should have made that clear. I tend to do this at the grocery store anyway. When certain food items get too high, I look for alternatives. Nonetheless, if everyone cut back a little, theoretically demand would go down, creating more supply, thus lowering prices.

The needy drive bigger, newer, nicer cars than my 7-year-old compact and my guess is that a lot of the people lining up for the free food have over-extended and experienced job loss, mortgage rate readjustment or credit card rate readjustment.

David, trying to eat less is commendable, but like being told there are children starving in Africa, does it really help the next person get a meal?