Best columns: Fighting inflation, Tossing food

Fighting food inflation

U.S. shoppers are facing the “worst food-price inflation in more than a decade,” says Jeffrey Strain in TheStreet.com. Other household costs are rising too, but the grocery bill at least has “some wiggle room,” if you know how to “exploit some areas within the system.” Some examples: Make a database of good prices, so you’ll know a good sale and can stock up. Buy in bulk, as long as you use all of the item, but not at a faster-than-normal rate. Buy only what you need, so no soda or desserts, say. Go ahead and “play the coupons game”—you can save hundreds—and only buy the sale items. And this “may seem obvious,” but “don’t throw food away.”

Fighting starvation

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“Tossed food” is the “third most common refuse found at landfills” in the U.S., says Thomas Kostigen in MarketWatch. And that is especially shameful when an unprecedented “food crisis” has left “millions of people living on the brink of starvation.” While U.S. shoppers face higher prices with “little more than a grimace and a shrug,” other countries have met the three-year doubling of food prices with “violent protests.” The $200 million in emergency food aid released by President Bush is an “admirable” start, but it is “a Band-Aid.” We need to commit more food aid. The U.S. is the most overweight country in the world, and “we need to stop eating and start feeding.”