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I treat my parsley and dill like flowers. I cut the stems off and put them in water. If they sit on the counter as opposed to the refrigerator, then they live just a bit shorter.

Cook's Illustrated had a tip that paralleled mine, except I think they added a plastic bag on top to keep from dehydrating.

Food prices then and now

The chart linked compares prices of various staples today, six months ago, and one, five, 10 and 20 years ago.

For the list of a dozen staples: $31.26, $30.99, $29.15, $26.29 and $21.98 respectively.

It's unclear from the article whether they did the math to make 1988 dollars equivalent to 2008 dollars.

It's unclear from the article whether they did the math to make 1988 dollars equivalent to 2008 dollars. (The article doesn't say that they did, which you'd think would be a prerequisite for an apples-to-apples, so to speak, comparison.) If they didn't, the Inflation Calculator I just consulted shows that the prices the article quotes from 2008 are actually considerably cheaper than the prices it quotes from 1988.

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club warehouse unit is restricting purchases of some types of rice to four bags a visit as prices reached a record in Chicago futures trading.

The limits on jasmine, basmati and long-grain white rice, a response to ``recent supply and demand trends,'' will be put into effect in all U.S. stores where allowed by law and are effective immediately, Sam's Club spokeswoman Kristy Reed said today in an e-mailed statement....

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Wal-Mart Stores' (WMT) Sam's Club warehouse division said Wednesday that it is limiting sales of Jasmine, Basmati and long grain white rices "due to recent supply and demand trends."

The news came as rice prices surged, with U.S. rice futures hitting an all-time high Wednesday on worries about supply shortages. Rice for the most actively traded July contracted jumped 62 cents to $24.820 per 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier rising to a record $24.85.

Relentless demand from developing countries and poor crop yields have pushed rice prices up 70% so far this year, raising concerns of severe shortages of the staple food consumed by almost half the world's population....

I was in a Big Lots on Sunday aka the land of discontinued food products. I bought four 15-ounce cans of canned apricots for 70 cents each. The intention is to make cobbler with them sometime. If you can find something you need there, then it will almost always be a decent price. It is also a cheap source of impulse buys for stuff you are simply curious about. Just don't fall in love with a product because you may never see it again anywhere.,

Though it's a good idea to be price-conscious when shopping at dollar stores, which I learned when shopping for the food desert project: at Dollar Tree, most stuff is a dollar - including cans of beans, which can be had for .49 at Jewel. Other stuff (C2's apricots being a case in point) can be real deals. Some of the key to navigating the rising cost of food is being aware of what the prices are in several places.

The Food Stamp Challenge
I've thought about moving on from the Food Desert challenge to see if I could manage this one. I tried today to plug in some of the food desert ingredients into PeaPod to see how far I would get and I didn't even get a full recipe's worth of ingredients for this much money (granted, seasonings are expensive but go a long way after purchase.) It is important to point out that food stamps are intended to be supplemental, not a sole source of nutrition - but here is a food stamp eligibility calculatorfor Illinois.

The USA Rice Federation has said there is no rice shortage in the United States.

But in a statement posted on its Web site, Sam's Club stated it was limiting members to four bags of imported jasmine, basmati and long-grain white rices to prevent supplies from running out.

"Like our competitors, we're just taking the precautionary step of limiting sales," it said. "This temporary restriction does not apply to retail-sized rice for sale in Sam's or elsewhere at Wal-Mart stores."

Recession Diet Just One Way to Tighten Belt

By MICHAEL BARBARO and ERIC DASH

Stung by rising gasoline and food prices, Americans are finding creative ways to cut costs on routine items like groceries and clothing, forcing retailers, restaurants and manufacturers to decode the tastes of a suddenly thrifty public.

Spending data and interviews around the country show that middle- and working-class consumers are starting to switch from name brands to cheaper alternatives, to eat in instead of dining out and to fly at unusual hours to shave dollars off airfares.

Though seemingly small, the daily trade-offs they are making — more pasta and less red meat, more video rentals and fewer movie tickets — amount to an important shift in consumer behavior....

Burt Flickinger, a longtime retail consultant, said the last time he saw such significant changes in consumer buying patterns was the late 1970s, when runaway inflation prompted Americans to “switch from red meat to pork to poultry to pasta — then to peanut butter and jelly.”

“It hasn’t gotten to human food mixed with pet food yet,” he said, “but it is certainly headed in that direction”....

Ms. Dunaway, a homemaker, used to splurge on the ingredients for homemade lasagna, her husband’s favorite, before food prices began to surge this year.

“Now he’s lucky to get a 99-cent lasagna TV dinner, or maybe some Manwich out of a can,” she said. “I just can’t afford to be buying all that good meat and cheese like I used to”....

The conversation that made the whole day worthwhile:
I stopped at a booth of bulk sellers of rice and grains. I inquired about the rice shortage, was it really real? I asked a guy who represented two different rice co-ops whose membership was 500 and 1500 (possibly 2000) rice growers. While in the USA and Canada, there is no shortage of rice. There are rice shortages worldwide due to crop failures in Australia and Asia.

He then outlined what was happening using the Phillipines as an example. The Filippinos eat rice 3X a day, it is an essential element in their diet. They normally buy their rice from Vietnam or Australia, where both had rice crop failures. Their need for rice is so great, they now turn to the United States for rice. They are willing to pay a premium to the domestic price to get this rice. It is his responsibility to get the best price for his rice co-ops, which presently is the international market. To sell domestically, he can only do this responsibly by offering the export price to domestic customers. While we have no shortage per se, the world market forces are influencing the final price of our domestic rice.

Domestic rice customers are now being granted allotments instead of buying all that they want. Domestic customers who may have abandoned contracts in the past who may be revisiting his co-ops as a source are being turned away. Sam's Club and Costco are not used to being given allotments. They also don't accept price increases less than 60 days advance warning. The rice market is so dynamic that price increase of 15% in a month is not unheard of presently. When one of his regular customers advised they will accept no more than a 2% increase, then he declines to sell them rice. He advised the U.S. market, due to these allotments, will have no shortage of rice though it will be paying more for rice.

Recognizing these events run in cycles, I learned the next rice harvest is not until October 15th. He was of the opinion this worldwide shortage of rice will likely not ease for a few years. If there is another crop failure, then I can see that may continue. If there isn't, then I cannot see how this could carry on for years. We both agreed we would have to wait and see what happens.

I commented I had not seen bananas at Costco for the last few months. He suggested it could be a similar issue like for the rice. A cost increase Costco would not accept, which meant the product was withdrawn from their offerings.

This thread is getting scary! It's as though we can hear the wolf's footsteps getting louder & louder with each added post.

On the bright side, this should cure the American obesity epidemic, shouldn't it?

According to the BMI, a person 6 feet tall and weighing 190 pounds is overweight, bordering on obese (add 15 pound and you are in the obese zone). So, how many 6' tall 215 pound football players have you seen that are FAT, not muscular?

Edited because I didn't calculate correctly.

Like the general media, this thread has really piled on with the doomsday talk of a food crisis. Here's some counter-thought...

For most of the last 10 years, food costs in the U.S. have been at unprecendented low levels as a percentage of disposable income.

If average food costs fully doubled (which, as I can tell, no one is predicting will happen anytime soon), they would still be significantly lower as a percentage of disposable income than they were during times of true crisis, including the Great Depression.

Talk of "crisis" sells newspapers and gets viewership, so it's easy to find article after article about doomsday on the front page of the newspaper and headlining the evening news. Meanwhile, thoughtful opposing viewpoints that argue against the notion of crisis are relegated to the "Dining & Wine" section of major newspapers - if, that is, they get published at all.