article in the NY Times<\/a> today that explains what happened. The price of wheat has skyrocketed lately, just like oil. Flour prices have gone way up. So the bagel shop owner had to raise his or her prices to stay in business. I can understand that. I only eat two bagels per week, so it\u2019s only another two dollars a month out of my pocket. But what just happened with bagels is happening for a lot of other important things today, like gasoline and food. I haven\u2019t seen economic stuff like this since the 1970s, i.e. prices going up every time you blink. Our economy is definitely entering troubled waters once again.<\/p>\nThe Times article makes an important point, however. We here in the USA are hurting in the wallet and pocketbook because of all the recent price inflation. Our standards of living are going down somewhat. BUT, the effects of all this on the developing world, especially Africa, are of an entirely different magnitude. The average American may have to defer his or her next purchase of a high-def TV or a new cell phone; the average Nigerian or Congolian may have to cut back on his or her daily caloric intake. People who are now productive may not remain so after a few months of low-level starvation. As such, poverty in Africa might only get worse.<\/p>\n
One of the big problems is that a lot of people in the world want to live like Americans, and are now imitating us by eating a lot more meat. Perhaps not in western Africa, but in other nations that have done somewhat better, e.g. Mexico and Indonesia, meat consumption is on the rise. And growing cattle and pigs and chickens uses a lot of grain; it\u2019s a much less efficient way of getting calories to human beings, as compared to just consuming the grain (even if you first have to boil or bake or mill it). So, the demand for grain has climbed greatly, and since farmers can only increase production gradually, prices have skyrocketed. Although grain production can go up, there is only so much arable land; some economists think that food costs are going up on a permanent basis. <\/p>\n
Of course, this could all change if the demand for meat starts to fall. Since the price of meat is very sensitive to the cost of the grain required to fatten up all those cows and pigs and birds for slaughter, consumers will soon be in for some sticker shock at the meat counter. At some point, meat eaters may re-think their diets. However, it will probably take a while; gasoline prices have been going up for three years now, but only now is the American public starting to think twice about those big guzzler SUVs that were so popular. <\/p>\n
There are some people, however, who have already taken the plunge for food \/ energy efficiency and thus for a better-fed world. They are called vegetarians<\/a>. And I\u2019m glad to be one of them. If you have thought about becoming one, there couldn\u2019t be a better time. And if you are already one, there couldn\u2019t be a better reason for resisting the social pressures that all veggies face to \u201cbe like everyone else\u201d and chomp down a burger. Sticking with our salads and tofu is just a drop in the bucket; it won\u2019t allow any particular Somalian to properly feed his children (nor allow me to buy cinnamon-raisin bagels at a reasonable price again). But someone has to take on the role of the prophet; someone has to light the path when it\u2019s still unpopular. So keep the lentils and rice coming, all you veg heads, and be proud of what you\u2019re eating!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I got a little shock the other morning when I went into the bagel store for a half-dozen cinnamon-raisins. Until about 6 months ago, the price was 50 cents per bagel. It had been fifty cents for about two or three years. But then it went up to sixty cents; well, no big deal. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5154,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/5154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}