I don't want to start a panic, but...

Is anybody else thinking this is going to be a bad winter, food-wise anyway? I have an idea it's going to be slim pickings at top prices. I heard that the drought in Texas is so bad the cattle had to be sold off because they were all dying from the heat and months without enough water, and already we're seeing the effects of that here; the grocery store hasn't had a single T-bone steak in ALL year, and they always had them out by Father's Day at the latest. We got some T-bones from another place and these are the measliest ones I've ever seen, no filet, not much meat on the other side of the bone either, and for that we were charged top dollar; a package of two looks like a suitable size for one steak. And if T-bones are scarce, no problem right? There's always sirloin steak, a close second I suppose...only the last couple of weeks there haven't been so many of them either.

One thing that has been in steady supply is hamburger, but within a few months, I'm wondering how good it's going to be, and how much is going to be that gristly stuff they sell in the 10 pound tubes that we just hate and it's impossible to get a good burger out of it.

And it's not just the meat...this is the first time in over 20 years of gardening that half of our crops didn't even come up, and the other half has been rotting overnight, no yellow tomatoes ever came up, almost no peppers, hardly any apples, no Brussels sprouts, scarcely a sweet potato, and it's not just us. I've noticed over the summer that there's been a shortage of Brussels sprouts in the stores and Wal-Mart, that says they have everything, no longer has normal frozen sprouts, the only ones they're selling cannot be cooked in water, they must be steamed in the microwave. On top of that, we haven't got a single good cantaloupe this year, every one we've gotten from the store rots before it ripens, and none of ours came up either.

And has anybody been watching the price of milk? It's almost $5 a gallon here, and if you get the generic stuff from Wal-Mart, I don't know what the hell they're putting into it but their generic whole red capped milk is BLUE!

Our friends and relatives on the south side are saying the prices of food are raising 20 or 40 cents every week, at this rate we're going to have to win the lottery just to comfortably afford groceries. Makes me wonder just how it's going to be this winter. Anybody else noticing a squeeze on the groceries lately?

Well, food in general is getting higher and higher here so I don't expect it to go down in price this winter. I have already noticed that good meat prices are hard to find.

Chicken seems to be in good supply here for the time being but I'm wondering how much they're going to charge for the turkeys at Thanksgiving. And the bacon when it's not on sale is averaging $5 a box and sometimes that's not even for the good stuff.

Might be a good time to become vegetarian.

Supernova wrote:Chicken seems to be in good supply here for the time being but I'm wondering how much they're going to charge for the turkeys at Thanksgiving. And the bacon when it's not on sale is averaging $5 a box and sometimes that's not even for the good stuff.

Turkeys will be affordable because they are competitively priced to get people into the store. I play to buy more than one this year to cook and freeze.

Hadn't thought about it, but I expect prices to increase once the weather starts to get chillier; they always seem to inflate over the previous winter.

Chris wrote:Hadn't thought about it, but I expect prices to increase once the weather starts to get chillier; they always seem to inflate over the previous winter.

Which is kind of odd because around here, a couple years back milk was as much a gallon as gas was, in the SUMMER, it seemed once we got out of the hot season the price went down for the milk again, but not this year, it just keeps rising.