Don't worry about trimming your waistline by cutting down on food consumption. U.S. food prices have been steadily rising in the past year, and it's only the beginning. Soon you won't be able to afford to overeat - maybe that's a good thing. Americans as a whole are far too overweight anyway. Going out to dinner at many restaurants means you probably have enough food left on your plate for two more meals at home - or we should anyway.
Ladies, if you are chocaholics, bad news. Hershey recently announced a 10% increase for most of its' sweet treats. What is a girl to do? We absolutely need that stuff. "Real" chocolate actually increases serotonin levels which keep us sane and happy. Oooops, here I was supposed to talk about a no-fail diet, and I'm talking about chocolate. Well, everything in moderation, right?
Higher wheat costs will begin to affect cereal and bakery products to the tune of a 3.5 to 4.5% increase. Tropicana has been hit by a series of prolonged frosts to its' orange juice crop and so citrus prices went up 11.5%. The costs of manufacturing lumber products, like paper towels and toilet paper have been hit as well by an 80% jump in lumber futures. According to the USDA, the wholesale cost of tomatoes more than tripled last year compared to the previous year. What, French Fries with no ketchup? Guess we'll be giving up those as well!
And needless to say the cost of gasoline to transport all of the food commodities that we need to consume is not helping matters either.
A common practice by many food and staples companies is to trick the consumer into believing that prices are not increasing by "short sizing." For instance, boxes of cereal have about 2.5 less ounces in them. The half gallon carton of OJ is now 59 ounces - 5 full ounces less! And, oh my, Haagen Dasz ice cream pints are 14 ounces instead of 16 - for shame- they kept the lid on the carton the same size so you don't notice and tapered the carton down in the middle. A 5.5% increase in the prices is expected as well.
So get ready to eat less for the same or more money. A no-fail diet plan for sure.
-Lady Fi
Kathy
No comments:
Post a Comment