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Food costs hit home: Utahns are struggling to cope with skyrocketing prices

Housing costs in the Uintah Basin area are even worse than they are in Salt Lake. The average RENTAL cost for a home here is about $1500 per month. Many are more than that. One ad in the paper for a home is $3000 a month to rent. Our married son, his wife and baby live with us because they can't afford to rent or buy on his income of $13 an hour. I wanted to buy some cheese at the store. It was $10! I didn't even look to see how much it weighed, probably 2 or 3 pounds. I paid $3.51 a gallon for regular gas today. Cost $40 for 1/2 a tank of gas. The Basin is floating in oil and natural gas, yet we are still buying foreign oil at ridiculous prices. The high cost of fuel makes everything else high, due to shipping expenses. In our area we are very dependent on goods that are trucked in. It would take mere minutes to empty the 3 grocery stores here, in the event of an emergency. It's pretty scary, for sure!

for sure. I have had to spend double these last two months then I did the same time a year ago. And like the article I also have 5 to feed. I spent more then a person should have too and I didn't get hardly any meat, except a few cans of Tuna. I have now had to make jam and bread to try and save some pennies. Something has to be done and NOW! It isn't fair for a person to have to decide between food and rent! Forget about buying a house anymore!

That article was a cut above most desnews articles. If it didn't have the tired comments of Kelly Matthews, it would have been even better.

Food prices will get worse. In the D & C 29:16 we are told that a "great hailstorm will come forth and destroy the crops of the earth."

We americans have no one else to blame for the state of our economy but ourselves. We have been living the past many decades on lies and deceit and perceived wealth. Our government has let our major businesses move out of the country along with our jobs, well paying jobs. America is no longer a self sufficient country that can take care of its own. Then add all the 23 million illegals in the mix that are also preying on our economy makes it even worse. The food we eat is no longer grown or a product of america, it's all imported and with the dollar showing it real value, almost nothing, it has a profound cost increaase on our staples. The gasoline is not the only product of oil and the reason it costs more. Look at how much of the food, toys, phones, applicances, cars, use plastics, all products of oil. Gasoline use is getting the blame for oil prices but look around you, stop buying and/or complain about products made of plastics. Drink water out of the tap instead of buying the plastic bottles. Pharmacuticals are another big oil user creating and manufacturing carbon (oil) based products.

Grocerys go up and so does the taxes
Same for gas
Cops working the streets and the courts are stealing your money

Government policies are causing both the increase in food and the ever increasing fuel prices. In the governments push to make us 'energy independent' we are sacrificing food for energy in the production of ethanol creating shortages on the world market of food.

While I am all for clean energy, developing all the energy we need will not be accomplished through wind, solar, or grain based ethanol.

We have to get started now on nuclear energy and developing our natural resources, read oil. As always, the only people who really get hurt during these times are the poor, middle class, and elderly.

When the environmentalists stop driving, flying, heating and cooling their homes, and stop the ruse of carbon offsets, then I will consider their argument. Until then, we need to get people into office that will stand up for the United States to make us strong instead of selling us out to foreign interests.

Just keep voting republican and things will get worse

Mr. Clinton did a lot when he was in office didn't he. Let me think...nothing but show the country it was ok to be immoral.

Commodity prices are increasing for one simple reason, demand is out stripping supply. Global population is continuing to increase while the world's supply of oil and arable land are declining. It's not rocket science folks, we will experience ups and downs in commodity prices, but with people in China and India finally gaining a degree of affluence, high prices and scarce resources are hear to stay.

Please you people. Learn to cook some basics. Americans eat too much anyhow. We don't need to eat meat every day (or at all). A big bowl of daily oatmeal with some a little milk and honey is cheap, tasty, satisfying, and healthy. It's time to reevaluate your meal plan. Stop the hype, hysteria and whining.

We are just reaping the benefits from 40 years of enviromentalism. It is time for the pendelum to swing the other way.

High prices fall directly at the feet of the Republican administration and the six years during the Bush years that the GOP had control of Congress. Since 1980 the Republicans have increased the national debt from 900 billion to 10 trillion and as a result the dollar has lost part of its value.

To Frank from Idaho:

I does not matter if one votes democrat or republican. Congressional members of both parties are corrupt. I am a member of the LDS Church and I personally would not vote for even one of the existing members of the LDS Church in Congress now.
Modern Americans are still asleep at the switch. They go for the easy route. It will not get any better. Even those who think that they are immune are not immune. There are a number of members of the Church in the stake that I am part of who's incomes are well into the six figures plus, and they think that they will come through the coming events with hardly a scratch. That their money will protect them because they will be able to continue buying the food and other things that one needs to exist. They will still be able to go to some store someplace and buy what they need. They definitely have some extremely strong rose colored glasses that they are wearing. A couple of former lawyers who used to live here made their living by going to American companies and buying(?) or// continued next post

continued: an existing company and going in with the MBA (Mindless, Brainless, Assinine) accountants and moving most if not all of the business to a "friendlier" country, with workers that will work for cheaper wages. Mean while the accountants and the lawyers legally pocket a whole lot of money and think that they have done a good thing.
Some months ago I read an article in a local paper (in Michigan) about a General Motors plant that had undergone a plant revision. The plant Managers had somehow managed over a few months managed to lay off about 1500-2000 workers. A few months after laying off these workers the plant managers(accountants) could not figure out why the demand for their product had started to drop off. White shirt and a tie along with a college degree does not guarantee that a person has a lick of common sense as to how things work.

Liberal larry was right. Essentially, supply is outstripping demand. We no longer live in a bubble of isolation, and there are simply too many of us on earth.
Many problems we've created are all going to come back and bite us all at once, and our sense of entitlement to cheap energy and food, among other commodities, is going to have to undergo a painful reevaluation. In spite of all the grousing, hardly anyone mentions conservation. If we haven't suffered enough, it's our right to suffer some more.

Thank you for this excellent article.

The photo of a woman and her grandson shopping that accompanied this article was revealing. In her shopping carts I could see two cases of pre-made, canned lemonade, a case of canned soda, and a bag of prepared green salad. This kind of wasteful packaging, shipping and time-saving food items cost the consumer a lot without increasing the foods nutritional value. If each shopper could refuse to purchase empty calories and wastefully packaged items and take a little time to prepare their own salads, sandwiches and cereal, the bottom line on their grocery bill would be considerably less. So often we want convienance and super refined foods that we let go of the idea that our first priority should be nourishing our bodies. An old hobby of mine is checking out grocery carts each week at the store. I am appalled at what many people purchase to feed their families. It would do wonders for our health and our pocketbooks to eat more "real" food and refuse to purchase the junk food.

I cannot change the government, the farmers, or the oil producers, but I can change what I purchase to feed my own family.

America is also the most wasteful society in the world. We take more than we need, over-consume, over-produce children, supersize... how can anybody expect the earth to sustain the burden we are putting on it? Maybe the crunch will remind people of the difference between want and need. We have been warned for years and it bothers me that people dare act surprised.

Cynthia Millar needs to reevaluate things. I thought about making my jam too, but with the cost of the strawberries, sugar, sure-jell and lids, as well as the cost of cooking, etc., it's cheaper to buy it in the store, even at todays prices.