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Food for thought
The folks at the USDA released their projections for 2011/2012-food price inflation. The bad news is that feeding ourselves will cost ~4% more in 2011. The good news is that USDA thinks prices will rise only ~2.5% next year.
I shop (I hate it). My food inflation is closer to 10%. It depends on what you eat. For example, from the report:
Meats, poultry and fish +6%
Seafood +6.5%
Beef +9%
Fresh vegetables +5%
Cooking oils +7.5%
These items are all well above the average set by the USDA. The following kept the index low:
Processed vegetables +1.5%
Beverages +2%
After looking at this I loaded up on canned peas and Coke.
There’s other information at the site I thought was interesting. For example, what’s your guess on the amount spent for food prepared at home and the amount spent on eating out?
Answer: 52% is prepared at home, 48% is purchased and eaten onsite or taken home. Half of what we eat is “out”. I find that to be a surprisingly high number. Behind that 50-50 ratio is, no doubt, the problem with diabetes and obesity.
If you were wondering how the restaurant-bar business did during the depression the USDA has the numbers. My conclusion is that depressions are very bad for eating establishments. It takes a long time for a real recovery in spending habits. It’s also clear that wars are very good for the restaurant biz.
The “eat out” numbers did fall in 2009. But they recovered in 10’ and are headed higher again in 11’. We had recession. A big one. But consumers barely batted an eye. I’m surprised at this result.
The At Home and Away total 2010 food bill came to $1.2T. That makes eating the largest industry in America.
In 1930 19% of all food consumed was Produced at Home. By 1960 that percentage had fallen to 6%. In 2010 it was only 1.6%. While this trend is not surprising, the magnitude of the drop is worth noting. At one time we were a nation of gardeners, today we just do ‘drive through’.
The food we eat makes us sick. The 2010 estimate for food related illnesses came in at a lumpy 76,000,000 people (About ¼ of us get sick every year). These illnesses caused 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. The economic costs of these illnesses came to $152 billion. In other words, the bad food we eat cost us significantly more in 2010 than the combined operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s not surprising that the US pays less for food as a percentage of income than any other country. But the comparisons are still interesting. The US spends 6.5% of disposable income for food. Poorer countries like Nigeria, Kenya and Cameroon are forced to pay ~45% of incomes to put food on the table. The high population countries are as follows:
Vietnam = 38%
Indonesia = 32%
India = 28%
China = 22%
I find these numbers troubling. There is only one direction for them to go. The developing countries with big populations will see greater gains in income, with that will lead to increased food consumption. Approximately 30% of income goes to food in these areas. It’s hard not to see that this is going to push up the prices the globe pays for everything we eat.
For example, the USDA put the per person food cost in China at $129 in 2000. Today that number is $360 (280% increase). Over the same period the USA consumption increased only 42%.
It’s old news that China and the other big/fast growing populations are consuming an ever-increasing amount of the world's supply. But these numbers are scary big. If the underlying trends continue (why would they not?) then we are headed into supply problems that can only mean rapidly rising prices.
This conclusion gets back to the beginning. Food inflation in America is running today at 5+%. The USDA says the inflation will moderate next year. This is more government hopium. I’ll take the “over” on their numbers. In my view rapid increases over the next decade are baked in the cake.
The most regressive economic consequence is for food inflation to take place. We have 45mm Americans on food stamps and tens of millions of others on the edge. I find it ironic that the Federal Reserve excludes food inflation when setting monetary policy. While the Fed can’t be blamed for rising food costs, they are most certainly stoking the fires.
Bernanke has said he wants to contain inflation (excluding food and energy) at less than 2%. Food inflation is running at double his target. Possibly Ben needs a new Mandate.
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"And I heard a voice from the midst of the four living creatures, saying "a bushel of wheat for a denarius, and three bushels of barley for a denarius..." - Revelations 6:6
Just an interesting verse. Without oil infrastructure the world could only support 1-2 billion. To get to 12 billion would require two more green revolution levels of productivity increase - a hard task when we're losing topsoil and a quarter of the world's arable land has desertified.
The article is right. Food can only go up, long term.
I believe there was 3.8 grams of silver in a denarius.
So what. McRib is back! I feel ill after eating one, but the deliciousness makes it all worth while.
Be careful of experiments based on one individuals beliefs, especially when the whole world hangs in the balance.
Thanks Bruce for the great article and the Banksy picture.
Here's a link to a youtube video showing Banksy's work in England, has a great Clash song for background music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmRLtZKbB5c
Lots of powerful imagery, Banksy is a genius, perhaps the Da Vinci of graffiti art.
Agree with you. Banksy is a genius.
A more disconcerting fact is that over 30% of all the energy we use (be it coal, natural gas, oil, or otherwise) is used simply to provide food. The largest share of that energy goes into a single chemical process, making fertilizer. Without the Haber Bosch process, the world population goes below 1 billion people overnight as it takes almost four acres of arable land (with access to plenty of fresh water) to feed a family of four. I see lots of folks on the outskirts of cities rasing chickens already. Good thing I guess, so long as they can afford the feed.
LawsofPhysics
Without the Haber Bosch process, the world population goes below 1 billion people overnight
And without Oxygen it goes to zero in 5 minutes. So.... Are you suggesting we will forget how to generate ammonia from nitrogen in the atmosphere or... ??
And the generation of ammonia consumes approximately 1% of our annual energy usage. Not a bad trade-off.
HEMP!!!
some assumptions here about fertility and arability. check this out, it's amazing and beautiful on youtube, 'greening the desert'. permaculture.
chickens, yeah, and don't forget eggs, real eggs i mean.
industrial fwrtilizer is anotheraspect of debt mentality. permaculture is being sustainable, and working your f- ing ass off and maybe that's how it's meantto be for us active human types.
transforming society by mass orgamic gardening, jobs and nutrition for all.
Depends on what you eat and what you put on the land. Rice & beans vs cattle. Where you get your NPK from etc. but yeah, farming is fundamentally lugging things around and that's energy intensive. The amount of moving shit is mind boggling. What is needed are cheap, hygenic, easy to use digesters. Turn shit into fuel.
http://www.magnegas.com/
Latest News And Pictures
They produce Syngas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngas
I'm not convinced it'd be energy positive, plasmas require a lot of energy to rip molecules apart. Particularly since they have wind & solar powered versions...
A digester you put the stuff in a vessel, keep it warm and the CH4 natural gas comes out the pipe. The gas can be used to keep it at the required temperature. The problem is digesters are expensive, messy, smelly and a pain to operate, you have to scrub H2O, H2S and CO2 out of the resulting gas before you can use it and the solids have to be dealt with, though make good fertiliser.
All the food we produce, ends up as shit. All the feedstock we produce ends up as shit. All the fertilisers we produce end up in the vegetable matter which end up as shit. We mostly take our shit and dump it in the ocean. A transfer of energy and nutrients from the agricultural land to the ocean. Basically we need to deal with shit.
Don't need much chicken feed and sure shouldn't use commercial crap. Chickens can eat most of the food scraps out of your home (including their crushed egg shells) as well as outdoor/backyard free range foods.
But, feeding chickens leftover fast food might kill them. We save that for our children.
Still need to keep them warm and I don't see many bugs in the snow. Sorry, if you think chickens somehow overcome the laws of thermodynamics, you are an idiot. Your "scaps" still have to come from somewhere. I have chickens, they do not survive on scraps alone, especially when there is three feet of snow on the ground.
We have chickens, and we live in a cold climate. We do buy them some scratch in the winter. They keep themselves warm. They have a coop but it is not heated. We do warm the water, so they will have liquid water. Interestingly the chicks that were hatched here grew their feathers in much earlier than the chicks that we had shipped to us. They are quickly changing to be more suited to our climate. We have a lot of cold here, but our snow is only rarely deep, so they can still find some food for themselves. Also, because we have little kids, we have lots of scraps for the chickens.
Chickens are so easy to take care of. They are so little trouble. Absolutely well worth having.
my coyotes agree
Keep them warm? It's called living in the tropics. Why overcome the laws of thermodynamics when you can circumvent them?
Chickens kick ass.
Chickens are great! They eat bugs as well and most are pretty well behaved. I used to gather the eggs from my parents chickens when I was a kid. I wish I had room and zoning for some chickens now.
Chickens are easier to raise than peppers, and provide eggs, meat, feathers, ferilizer and more chickens.
Whoever domesticated chickens was a genius.
"Whoever domesticated chickens was a genius."
Seriously. My days of City Slicking are over for good. You can easily enjoy MetroUSA or MetroANYWHERE at any time. Leaving it ain't so easy.
You forgot the fertilizer they spread too.
The downside? Poultry prices have remained flat. WHo cares?
Add some rabbits to the mix for a treat. Rabbits are easier than chickens, and they are very tasty, low hastle protein.
get some angora rabbits and a drop spindle - voila! angora yarns.
"Chains such as McDonald's(MCD_), Chipotle Mexican Grill(CMG_) and Starbucks(SBUX_) continue to grow"...maybe there is your answer.
People who don't know how to cook don't know how to shop for food so when they first start to try to cook at home they work out it is cheaper to eat at chain restaurants compared to loading up on shit from the aisles...and see also the savings rate drop, that consumer deleveraging myth, when they eat out they put it on the card same as the fuel to get there.
Some people will rather die than learn.
It's just bizarre that people keep eating out just as much. From the second the recession hit I've been changing my ways because of this I actually spend less on food than I used to, which will be going down even further when my dwarf dairy goats start producing any day now. It is a lot of work to cook bunches of yummy food from scratch all the time though, and there is a learning curve to it. I dreaded it when I had to start cooking everything because of my daughters food allergies, so I understand why people don't do it, but it really is pretty good once you get going on it. I have never eaten so well as I do now.
Okay, I'm going to say something contraversial now, that I may get down arrows for. I think much was lost when women went to work outside of the home. I understand that the movement had to come in a big way so that women would be allowed to work. Some never marry or some lose their husbands, and it is best that they be allowed to get good jobs instead of just doing low wage work. But, women having to leave their children, and leaving the cooking of the families food to corporations instead of the mother was a bad thing for people. Children need their mother, and we all need someone we can trust preparing our food. We have moved too far away from our true animal natures IMHO.
dolly that's all great as long as you have a good husband who cherishs you and is good to you, but there are few men who protect and cherish. Most are control freaks and wife beaters who do not know how to appreciate a woman, and they are stingy and consider the money earned as "theirs" alone and not as hers too. Stingy to boot. Most of the men will red arrow this, all thinking they are such an asset.
swamp
I think your view is a little more personal and not suitable for generalization. Most men I know, myself included are the antithesis of your description.
Look around, they are out there.
P.S. you're not my ex-wife are you ???
dolly, working class women - married or not - have always worked. when the middle class housewives entered the workforce, corporations took advantage of their lower pay rates and relatively malleable personalities ("women" gender roles lean more towards "sociable").
not every female wants to be a mother or a wife - some prefer more autonomy, some just don't like the role-playing offered. those mothers who do work don't necessarily have to "leave the cooking to corporations" - I know plenty of working mothers who prepare meals for their children, and those who have partners, working or not, can learn to share the load of having "family."
going forward I wouldn't be surprised to find many people living in more "communal" situations, where support exists outside the nuclear family role-modeling, much more efficient - after all, the whole couple'n'kids story was created so that each nucleus would be spending on the same items of accumulation - every home with it's appliances, lawn tools, garages full of identical stuffs, etc. etc. - amrkns can't afford this kind of waste going forward.
IMHO, life was better for both when the wife could stay home. When one income would pay for a picket fence complete with a house and family within. Women didn't go out into the workforce because they WANTED to... they were told to want to, as the lifestyle in the developed world was already deteriorating. It was one of the many ways the can got kicked.
What is so cortroversial for stating the obvious? Stay at home mothers that are competent do far better in educating their children than do the factory schools too.
The downside is that women that want to stay at home to raise thier urchins never learned cooking skills and such, so have a steep climb to quickly learn the old verities.
Good for you for trying, and don't forget that educating the young must be started early and often.
www.indoctrinationmovie.com
Cool. It is contraversial on liberal groups. I got booted out of a liberal group before for saying I think women should not be in the military if they have children because they should not be away from their children for so long.
I go to both liberal and conservative groups online because my agenda is to stop the divide and conquer.
dolly madison
Thanks for stating out loud, that which many fear to say.
I believe women should have the right to work outside the home, in any occupation; with the caveat of active military operations. However, the destruction of the familly begins when both parents no longer anchor the home.
Two income families for what ? Creeping inflation by the Fed, statistical lies by Big Government, and never-ending interest (rents) to the Uberclass.
Are we better off with two income families. Hell no !
And "this group" is...?
absolutely fabulous?
Some people will rather die than learn.
Fine with me, evolution at work.
"some" I'd say most.
evolution isn't working when government is subsidizing idiots to produce more to keep the ponzi going.
The “eat out” numbers did fall in 2009. But they recovered in 10’ and are headed higher again in 11’. We had recession. A big one. But consumers barely batted an eye. I’m surprised at this result.
In the 30's people knew how to make do and feed themselves with what they had to a much greater extent. Most Americans today barely have the culinary skills to boil water. That combined with the widespread belief that a Roman emperor sized caloric intake is civil right means supersize eating out is one of the last things to be cut when money is tight.
Up until 1970 most families could feed themselves well with what they had on hand. When women went into the workforce en mass; the skills were lost to the following generations. How many of your wives would be able to "put-up" 30 bottles of tomato sauce and canned pickles for the winter to carry your family through?
I can! Of course, I know very few other women who are able....it annoys me greatly!
I know one doctor's wife who doesn't work, hires someone to come in and clean up the kitchen/make the beds everyday, then hires babysitters to care for her children. And she NEVER COOKS!
She must be great in bed....
I'm guessing most of the men here don't choose "wives" for their kitchen / food preserving skills, based on the attributes most list here as "desire-able" - of course, one doesn't need the XX chromosomes to can pickles, etc.
I have many male friends who cook, can, preserve, grow, keep chickens & bees - all those "chef" & "landscaping architect" skills are proving useful in ways they hadn't envisioned just a few years ago. . .
The vast majority of Mormons can and pickle enough food during the harvest season to get the family through a full year. Utah would do just fine.
In my central coast region, Club XIX in Pebble Beach, California, a high-end restaurant, is closings its doors after 47 years, a “victim of the economy.”
Here are more closings.
Bankruptcy Watch: 14 Risky Restaurant Stocks report updated with Sonic's quarterly earnings results.)
NEW YORK (TheStreet) 6/22/11 -- Amid concern over a possible double-dip recession -- or at least some stall in the recovery -- in the midst of rising gasoline and food prices, bankruptcy is a real concern for any company, and the restaurant sector is certainly not immune.
American diners spent 40.5% of their food budgets eating away from home in 2010, down just slightly from 41% in 2006, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Chains such as McDonald's(MCD_), Chipotle Mexican Grill(CMG_) and Starbucks(SBUX_) continue to grow. But even so, a number of restaurant operators have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent months.
Notably, Sbarro, the famously mediocre Italian chain, went bankrupt in April. The Perkins and Marie Callender's restaurant chains filed for bankruptcy in early June, with plans to close 65 of their 600 locations and cut 2,500 jobs. Even celebrity-backed restaurants have fallen: Eva Longoria's Las Vegas restaurant Beso filed for bankruptcy in January, and Michael Jordan's The Steakhouse NYC, which overlooks the renowned lobby of the Grand Central Terminal, went under in November of last year.
Huff Post - UPDATE (10-5-11 11:39 a.m.): The AP is also reporting that Friendly's has filed for Bankruptcy. Here's the AP report:
NEW YORK (AP) -- The parent of the Friendly's restaurant chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday and said that it has already closed 63 of its stores. Each store employed about 20 people, so about 1,260 jobs were lost.
The 76-year-old company known for its ice cream and hamburgers is the latest restaurant chain to file for bankruptcy, as consumers continue to eat out less, a habit they picked up during the recession, and food costs remain high.
Other companies that have sought bankruptcy protection this year include Perkins & Marie Callender's; Real Mex, which operates El Torito Restaurant and Chevys Fresh Mex, and SSI Group Holding Corp., which operates Souper Salad and Grandy's restaurant...
I never really eat out now, not that I ever really did - just a completely uneeded expense. I can buy about 2 kgs of silver a year with the money saved, plus canned food to throw in the larder...
A "needy" family of four in 2010 received $668 a month in food stamp benefits ($1052 for a family of seven), plus an additional $900 in monthly cash assistance allowance through TANF, plus....
I dunno, MAXILOPEZ. Some folks living in America might say they don't need any canned food...or the silver. My question. I wonder how often these folks eat out?
MR Krasting, you are incorrect about the restaurant biz during the Great Depression.
The traditional view is that once the first severe recession troughed in 1933, the restaurant biz was the ONLY sector of the US economy to never again return to a negative growth year over year until the outbreak of WWII ended the second recession of the GD,
The old yarn about going out and being able to afford a cup of coffee and a roll at a diner giving people some escape from the home, is a truism that I've heard retold repeatedly over the years from folks in the 'Greatest Generation'.
regards,
"After looking at this I loaded up on canned peas and Coke."
Not a good choice in Northern California.
Since about 3 months ago the lowest sale price for a 2 Liter Coke bottle never dropped below $1.25, while all the 3 years before had regularly seen sales at $0.99 - so for me that constitutes a 25% price increase. I am drinking more Dr. Pepper now.
stop drinking high fructose corn syrup acidic poison soft drinks.
stop eating partially hydrogenated crap.
cancel your health insurance and take back your health.
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you can get cheap lab grade magnesium chloride, iodide, and zeolite at most tropical fish stores.
the average tropical fish guy knows more about sustaining life than the average croaker.
there's no room for error when you're trying to keep a $500 chunk of coral alive.
you do NOT want to be imbibing 'cheap lab grade' anything! Often, the original production was in China where quality controls are lacking; the stuff can often be mis-labeled and/or loaded with impurities. Also, don't let a name brand fool you - the Chinese stufft gets shipped all over the planet and re-packaged 5-6 times making it difficult to track the country of origin.
Just eat a balanced diet & you won't need to supplement nutrients. Micheal Pollan sums it up perfectly in "In defense of food" - Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants
Thanks for the links...
Great links, tamboo. Thank you.
Food is your best medicine by Henry bieler was a game changer for me.
http://www.amazon.com/Food-Your-Medicine-Henry-Bieler/dp/0345351835/ref=...
Also, I highly recommend earthclinic.com for natural remedies for what ailes ya. Apple cider vinegar, bitches.
Don't forget all the wild edibles that grow everywhere. Look up "edible wild plants" on amazon for a great book on what to eat. Dandelions are your friend :) We're so far removed from our natural state it's almost a comedy. Humans have been around much, much longer than any "farms" have. The world is full of edible plants.
Stop babbling nonsense.
Read in wikipedia.org about fructose, glucose, and the disaccharide sucrose. Try to grasp that the "high" in HFCS 55 is actually just a tiny bit inclined towards fructose, compared to sucrose.|
Further read up what the "dangerous" concentrations of phosphoric acid is contianed within Coke: about 0.3% ...