Comments on The End Is Nigh

We are not fucked. We will have to pay more for food. That isn't fun, but it isn't the end of the world. Look around you, most people eat too much anyway.

This reminds me of the story on Drudge today about the 400-pound inmate who's suing the jail because he's dropped 100 pounds in jail because- "They just don't give me enough to eat!"

Thank the falling heavens that I'm already paying out the ass for local, sustainable agriculture, so all you slobs paying more for beakless chickensteins (and plastic bags) just seems karmic.

ECB - your link to Michael Pollan is a "mailto:" link. You should fix it.

I have a SUPER receipe for Alpo Pot Roast! Grandma say's it is the BEST!!!

Some folks (like these gals they interviewed) will settle for eating processed, less nutritious foods, ostensibly so they can continue eating monstrous portions at every meal.

The upside is that others will just eat less, which is really what most people need to do anyway.

It hasn’t gotten to human food mixed with pet food yet,”

In a lot of places throughout our planet it has gotten to that and beyond that.

My (slightly less doom&gloom) take on the same article.

Unless, of course, the avian flu doesn't get us first, right?

Christ but I'm sick of all this fearmongering. Things are crap, it's not getting any better but for the love of all that's holy can we please stop panicking?

Here's the corrected link, in case ECB's too busy to fix it:
http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/rice_riots_or_why_michael_pollan_is_wron&su=slogtip

But anyway -- yes, OMG, this is a serious problem!!! And did you read that other NY Times article about how professional "bloggers" are dying of heart attacks?! WE'RE DOOMED!!!!

so... what do we do in the mean time?

Hey, isn't that what you wanted? Less meat consumption?

Anyways, food prices have still been very low here for years, either compared to history or to other nations. After WWII, Americans spent about 20% of their income on food; in 2005, they spent less than 10% on it - much less than most other nations, even developed ones. Some perspective is in order.

If we just elected a Dem for President and filled the House and Senate with Dems, and then removed the subsidies for ADM and other "growers" of corn for ethenol, this would all correct itself.

And sending food aid from the US frequently destroys the local farmers, by the way. They can't compete with free food and so go out of business.

That said, I've been going out a lot less often myself, as are my friends, and one who has higher medical expenses has had to give up going to Sunday brunch with us ...

Maybe now people will consider eating lower on the food chain and becoming vegetarians?

Nah.

Right because food prices going up a few percent in one of the riches countries on earth is going to kill us all.

My solution is to make more stuff from scratch. The people in this article are apparently doing the exact opposite.

kenemishi @ 16
i was thinking the same thing. maybe it's because they don't teach home economics in school anymore (back in my day at bryn mawr elementary in chicago it was called home mechanics), but its telling that the homemaker they interviewed was spending $2.49 for 8 ounces of packaged ham when she could prolly find a whole cooked one for cheap at $1.99 a lb.. or that she will feed her family sandwiches made with manwich canned sauce rather than make her own for pennies on those hard wrought dollars. and i shudder to think just what kind of ingredients she 'splurged on' on to make her husband's lasagna.

The "pet food" BS is urban myth. Pet food costs MORE than the equivalent cheap-ass canned people food.

These kinds of anecdotal reports are hilarious and stupid. You've got people making many-dollar changes in response to just a few cents' change in price.

@12 is on to something.

Anyone see "King Corn," the movie about the kids that grew an acre in Iowa to see what's going on? They interviewed some old guy that was (something like the "secretary of farming"?) in 1973 or so. He opened up the flood gates to a massive, cheap food supply. He credited feeding our populace inexpensively for our economic success in the world.

As long as Subway has $5 footlong subs and McDonalds has a dollar menu, rising food costs are not going to mean people are heating healthier.

With the rising cost of beans and grains, even eating a nutritionally balanced vegetarian diet is becoming expensive.

Also @15, it's been about 6% for the last two years, and up to 30% on eggs and dairy. These are hardly minimal percentages.

Finally, a way to keep the Hoi Polloi at home! The plan is working perfectly...

Anybody who doesn't know who Earl Butz is or the effects of the farm bills on how the people with the fewest dollars to use for food, who are in many cases the direct descendants of families who lost their farms as a result "get big or get out" agri-business, should read for a while instead of writing opinions in response to blog posts.

You know people mention eating vegetarian or making meals from scratch but the costs of produce and beans and rice and grains have also risen a lot and pulling together the ingredients to make some meals from scratch is becoming just as expensive.

Face it, it's going to cost more to eat, regardless of what you choose to eat. Will it mean people begin to lose weight? Doubtful because unfortunately fast food and processed food appear to be the cheaper and quicker alternative in a lot of people's minds.

And, as another article in the NY Times explained in times of high stress people tend to turn to junk food as a coping mechanism.

I have begun hoarding chocolate so that in the urban wars I will have a scarce and valuable commodity to trade.

@20, people spend 10% of their incomes on food. Even 10% a year aggregate would only be an increase of 1% of income. Most people can cover that by forgoing a new cell phone or canceling netflix.

Where rising costs are a problem is in the third world where people are living on a hair line. Plus the lack of effective infrastructures lead to hording and constrained supplies making food simply not available. None of those are a problem in the west.

At least based on most people I know we could buy half as much food as we do and still have plenty to eat.

@20: It's hitting people hard everywhere. I know the "first world" is infinitely more privileged but there really are people that are suffering here too.

I come from a small rural community and the high price of food, gas, and especially heating oil this winter has been extreme.

So, please, don't generalize the experience of middle-class Seattleites with the rural poor in the age of factory farming or rust-belt workers in the age of outsourcing.

@23 - It's not that vegetarian or less meat-intensive meals won't be more expensive than they were. It's that they'll still be cheaper than the meat-rich diet Americans have gotten all too used to. We'll probably have to get used to thinking of meat as more of a supplement to food rather than the main attraction, if it's there at all.

Or at least we'll have to wait until in vitro meat saves us. Oh, that will be a glorious day indeed. (Although few seem to agree with me on that.)

Sorry. Meant @24.

[i]" It's not that vegetarian or less meat-intensive meals won't be more expensive than they were. It's that they'll still be cheaper than the meat-rich diet Americans have gotten all too used to. "[/i]

+1 on that. The amount of grain, water and petroleum it takes to make a pound of edible meat is crazy.

I'd start shopping at Value Village for my clothes before I'll give up eating meat. At least when the clothes come off I won't be a doughy mess which is what I was when I ate "frugally" in college with a carb-heavy diet of Craft
macoroni and cheese and Ramen.

@25, I am not saying that people aren't hurting, only that this is not a OMG end of the world crisis. People are going to have to cut back, more will go on public assistance, and a few might take on second jobs. The thing is that our economy has enough elasticity and strength to ride this out(easily) and the end result will hopefully be a more efficient society.

Where this is a huge problem is in places that do not have the ability to adjust. A poor guy in Africa simply cannot choose to buy less expensive food, work more, or do any of the things a westerner can do to in times of economic trouble.

@30: Ok. We're coming from the same place then. I agree with everything you said here.

I've just seen a lot of family friends and relatives who have had to get second and third jobs in the last few years, so I'm extra sensitive.

@29 - Of course, everyone knows that vegetarians are the fattest people around. Good job missing the entire point of everything.

I agree; Ms Dunaway could use a class in home economics. If she bargain shops and uses coupons, she could make a 12 serving lasagna for under $12, (tip: if ricotta is too expensive, substitute cottage cheese).

And Manwich is essentially ketchup, mustard and onion powder...(I buy chicken gumbo soup on sale, and add some ketchup and mustard and it's better than Manwich).

Kinda a tangent, but worth keeping an eye on:

Something I haven't seen reported yet but is quickly becoming an issue is the value of organics pushing farmers in that direction. You'd think the proliferation of farms using organic methods would be a great thing, but the yields are much lower, driving prices up even higher for both types of agriculture.

Of course as "organicly farmed" goods catches on with the big retailers, the term is being redefined into meaningless oblivion, so it may end up a wash in the end. But in the mean time, this style of lower-yield farming is adding a bit fuel to food-shortage fire, and I haven't seen in mentioned in the media.

Will in Seattle @13, the diversion of corn to ethanol has a tiny impact on the cost of supermarket foods. That box of cornflakes? - 5% of its price covers the cost of the corn that it's made from. The real driver? The cost of oil.

Repealing ethanol subsidies, although a righteous move, would not have much effect on the price of food. The only way supermarket prices are coming down is if the price of oil comes down, making fertilizer, the operation of farm machinery, transportation and packaging all cheaper.

@35, Well corn prices have tripled. So that would, assuming 5% is in buying the corn, result in a 10% increase in price, all things being equal.

please don't make me eat Manwich. i'm afraid i'm already going to have to quit eating organic for the nasty chemical-laden shit.

@32: Dude, I WAS a fat vegetarian. What @29 is talking about are the poor or uneducated vegetarians who replace meat with cheese as a protein source or who don't realize that filling carbs don't give you a lot of nutrients but do give you a spare tire.

I have even known fat vegans who live on junk food made from processed chemicals but no animal products.

I would be overjoyed if the population switched over to a vegetarian diet, but it would require education because it's not a clear or easy transition.

Once again Fnarf fails to comprehend the situation.

Rice prices are TRIPLING in the Phillipines (just announced, print edition of Wall Street Journal).

And the problem, @14, is that it's people who used to be vegetarian for the most part who worldwide are consuming more meat and other "special" food at the same time biofuels are removing the crops from the world food supply and droughts etc are hitting many nations due to global warming (actually, cataclysmic temperature and weather oscillations, but it does raise global mean temps which are offset by melting ice/glacier/continents).

Meat is damn cheap in the Chinese supermarkets, and if you cook Chinese or Indian, or slice up larger cuts for tacos, empanadas, or burritos even, you can stretch a cut of meat a long way.

The cost of processed food is high because people are too fucking lazy to prepare it properly and freeze it properly to eat later.

and I was speaking worldwide, where just in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Phillipines and many many other nations larger percentages of the croplands are being used for biofuels.

You really need to realize food is no longer grown just in the US - and much of what we eat is imported. Heck, the UK imports around 90 percent of their fruits and veggies ... (fun food fact). It used to be 10 percent just a while ago.

Not to worry, the EU is imposing a carbon tax on imported food soon, that should help fix this. While we slack on in the US.

Grain prices are rising because they are largely tagged to the US Dollar. Measured in a more stable form of wealth, gold for instance, they have been fairly flat. This is just another unintended consequence to the Government (in this case the Federal Reserve) attempting to manipulate the free market,

oops. "consequence of" not "consequence to"...

#32: Uh, yeah. Most vegetarians I know ARE fat. They eat way too much sugar/carbs/starch. I've also yet to meet a hot, buff vegetarian man. They are always skinny and Woody Allen looking. No thanks!

Clearly the kobolds were right. It's time to switch to a younger, tenderer meat.

http://www.koboldsatemybaby.com/

@44,

So they're fat and skinny? You make no sense.

All the fat vegetarians I've known were fat before they became vegetarians.

Ew, Denny's? You're better off eating anything else.

Can we eat people who go to Denny's?

That would save money ...

@#33: Strangeways- Cottage cheese? Eu, gross. Bechamel is much cheaper than cottage cheese, and much tastier.