Just thinking this is strange and scary - Food in America

TANNER'S MOM wrote: Okay, I am a southern girl. Of course we see cows in the pasture and chickens in the chickens house around here. Most people just go to the grocery store with out every having to see their food or wonder where it's coming from.

Some things happening around here recently has got my mind working over time..lol

I have an uncle who works for Tyson's. The leader in the poultry, beef and pork business. He works for a Tyson's feed mill. For the last 3 days he has been unable to work due to the fact that they can't get corn to mix the feed to go to the chicken farms. This has formed a major crissis for alot of people in this area. From farmers, truck drivers, to your grocery store we will all pay for this in one way another.

The main reason they can't get corn is due to the fact that everyone is now growing and selling corn for ethanol (sp?). It seems the goverment has contracted with growers from here to Mexico for corn alternative fuel, but have we forgot that we also have to eat? That farmers have animals to feed. Are we creating a monster?

Yes we need fuel answers, gas prices are a big stress for me and a huge fear, but we also have to eat. If we can't get corn, what is that going to do to prices of food?

Another thing that is scary for me. My husband works for a manufactor of cans. You know, green bean cans etc. They have cut all over time. They have stopped storing in the warehouse. They sent pickers to pick in the south Texas area where they usually are this time of year, but it's so flooded they had to come home. Allen's canning is a huge customer of my husband's work, his works produces the cans and Allen's puts the food in them. Due to rain in most places and heat in others they are unable to can food right now. No production and are experiencing a lay off in their plants.

I also know from a good friend of mine, that cattle aren't moving in South Texas due to the flooding. What that really means is nothing in that part of the state is going to the butcher. The farmers are having to feed more which will drive prices up more, hay is under water with nothing to feed them. There won't be hay this winter due to being able to cut hay, with nothing to feed this winter they will have to purchase hay at huge prices. And what about the month or more nothing as been hauled to the butcher? That's a lot of beef.

Yes America has stores of food, but we need to think of where it comes from and how long it will stay there.

I think we take for granted that we will eat. We don't always think of where it comes from or what small chain of events affects the way we recieve our food?

I went to the feed store and feed was already up $2.00 a 50# bag this week. Yuck!

redchief replied: You're right, Mel, especially, I think, in attributing at least part of the blame to the gov't. The first thing they have to be honest with is the whole pricing gag. Ethanol costs more to produce than oil based fuel. It just does, so that's not a solution to rising gas prices. In fact, it's part of the cause. By removing so much of the feed stock from the market they're also going to cause runaway price increases in other important economic areas even beyond food.

Those ripples will be felt throughout the GNP and this will cause even more production to go out of the country further increasing our trade deficit. The government should really stay out of business. Every time they stick their self-righteous noses into business they create a mess. If they really want to help they should tariff these rogue developing countries who use child slave labor or darned near it into paying decent wages so that domestic production can see some growth again. Not likely though... that would be intelligent.

luvbug00 replied: we buy all frozen from costco so i was compleately unaware of this. It is terrible sad people are losing their jobs and attempts to save the planet in somways backfires and hurts other aspects.

luvmykids replied: We've had a hard time getting hay, and all three feed stores near us have been out of pellets at one point or another because there's no hay to make the pellets.

I forgot what the price of corn was at the store but it was too high for me to pay, I didn't want corn that bad LOL.

You're very right, the food in the stores has to come from somewhere. I've been amazed at the gradual incline of prices over the last several months and hate to think what prices will be in the future.

punkeemunkee'smom replied: It can/will easily become an economic nighmare for some....ranchers will not be able to sustain the rapid rise in feed costs and farmers can't help but try to make the most of the crop land they have. Most people do not understand what actually goes into getting the burger (or veggies) to the plate. We will see a rise in beef/chicken/pork prices AGAIN and the saddest part about that will be the fact that although prices will rise in the store lots of people on the ground level will lose lots of money. IN the cattle market there is only so much of a window that you can sell in to butcher (mass market) and when that time comes it is SELL or lose completely...I don't know what will happen but I know Bill is pretty worried and I am sure Randy is too!

Oh and feed went up again here too...$8.00 for a 50 of creep and milk replacer was $47.00 for a 25!!! Yep they are fixin to be weaned

TANNER'S MOM replied:
We have had a good hay season here this year. But come winter you won't be able to pay for it. They will ship it all to Texas and other places to get the top dollar for it. No need to sell it here when you can triple your price somewhere else really.

We have a farmer friend we get hay from..and thank god because come winter I had to worry about it.

A round 4x5 bale of hay 2 years was $20 and now it's $60-$70..inflation at it's best.

boyohboyohboy replied: my dh talks about this constantly, and we dont really see it like you do right there on a farm...
but it is scarey when you are already on a tight budget and food is going up, its hard to cut back even more to make ends meet.

BAC'sMom replied: Our excessive rainfall in South Texas has stopped nearly all agricultural operations that includes cotton, grain sorghum, rice, vegetables, citrus etc. Yes the rain has stopped for now, but the fields are so soggy that what does need to be harvested can’t because the farm equipment can’t get in the fields. We will all feel the effects in our pocketbooks in the near future, so get ready. As for hay... last year during our drought we have paid as much as $12.50 per bale (that is a small square bale) to keep our horses feed, I went yesterday to the feed store and paid $9.50 per bale and it's gone alittle since we have gotten some rain. Feed prices have gone up so much around here that there is a sign warning you on the feed store door, the price changes at least every few days.

Things are looking scary.

luvmykids replied:
We've had good hay season locally, but even the little local growers are doing just what you said, taking it elsewhere where they can get more money for it. DH ordered a load of hay for $550 which was supposed to be for 100 small bales....the guy called and said he'd only be able to give him 50 bales at the same price because he was getting offers from hay brokers that were better. That means it went from $5.50 a bale to $10.50 a bale

eta: We just sent two horses to FIL and are sending another two because he has unused pasture and we just can't pay that kind of money with this many horses.

gr33n3y3z replied: man that sucks what you are all going through right now

Hillbilly Housewife replied: We're paying 8$ for small bales here Monica. I just bought one for my guinea pigs. Unlike horses, though, this will last me a good couple of months.

I do grow a lot of our veggies... and I tend to buy more when veggies are on sale etc... I tend to can a lot of our own stuff, too, it saves a lot on our budget, surprisingly, for what little time it takes me to do. Just recently I made another big batch of strawberry jam - it cost me about 8$ to make 12 half pints, which if I would have bought the same amount of jam in the store, would have cost me about 30$.

I make my own bread and yogurt too - that saves at least 50 - 60$ a month for the amount of bread and yogurt we eat. Well not me with this diet, though.

It's ridiculous. The government should just stay the heck out of our way.

luvmykids replied:
With small bales, we go through two a day IF we're giving them grain too But DH taking those horses will help, that puts us down to 10 here at the house. I'm pushing to sell some of them but we can't agree on which to sell and for how much

I need to learn to grow veggies too, next summer I'd like to have a pretty full garden. Come fall I'll have apples coming out of my ears, we also have two pear trees and two peach trees.

DansMom replied: This thread is very enlightening for me---my lifestyle is so city-oriented. You're right, I don't think much about the food chain---in terms of additives and such I've given it thought, but not about what happens to the economy and people's lives (and animal's lives) when there's no feed, for example. Someone once told me not to buy an ethanol vehicle because of the corn-production problem, but that remained theoretical for me until today as I read this thread.

Are the climate problems that affect agriculture due to global warming or just normal fluctuations? I ask not to start a debate. I really want to know what people in the business of farming think about weather changes and if things are worsening. The prediction has been, for those who believe the theory, that we'll start running out of food (and water) pretty soon due to harsher weather conditions where food is grown.

TANNER'S MOM replied: I have not read up on the global warming theory as I should've. But I do know that the weather patterns are a lot different then when I was a child. I am not sure what's right or wrong.

I know that this food thing is something I would've never even given thought 20 years ago. But know with children that almost young adults and the ecomony and fuel prices what they are.. it' has given cause to worry.

cameragirl21 replied: i'm with DansMom in that this is an interesting topic for me as a city girl who never gave any of these things much thought. i rarely eat corn and i don't eat meat at all so obviously this is not something that would have any direct impact on me per se but on the other hand, i work with a lady (the one who took in that rooster turned hen that i told you all that i found) who has a farm full of animals and they too need to be fed, but she said she doesn't feed them corn, they get other grains, idk the details because it's not exactly my area of expertise.
as for corn for ethanol, idk enough about the process, costs, etc but i suspect that the reason for this is not so much to reduce fuel costs but rather to reduce our dependence on arab oil which too is a problem as we could run out of oil if they decide to another embargo like in 1973 which was before my time but some of your parents i'm sure remember what that was like.
obviously something has to be done in that sense as we are fools to think the saudis are our friends and yet we rely on them (among others) for oil without which we'd see all of our industries (just about) move to a stand still.
idk if corn is a solution, like i said, idk enough about it but i will say something has to be done.
as for the environmental problems, idk if they have anything to do with global warming or anything else caused by humans but i recall some years ago when we in florida had nonstop shark attacks and i knew back then there must be some environmental issue causing that because in spite of what hollywood and others may hype up, sharks are generally non aggressive and they tend not to like the taste of humans, nor do they like to swim in shallow waters for the most part so i knew something was going on. now we have an abundance of hurricanes every year (although last year we got lucky, we meaning south florida, idk if anyone else got hit) so i think it does go to show that the environment IS an important factor in our lives and should not be taken lightly.
as for the main topic that mel started, i hope some solution is found but in all fairness, our world is changing and i'm rather alarmed at some of the changes--such as outsourcing to india, etc where people need the jobs here. and the fact that we're not easily winning wars that we thought would be fairly easy.
i would be lying if i said i'm not worried about future generations, as well as my own generation.
incidentally, most of what i buy is organic so i'm used to spending a small fortune on food, idk what others who are not used to it would do to adjust to the changes and idk what i would do if all the fruits and veggies i buy will suddenly double in price or simply become unavailable.

TANNER'S MOM replied: Well whether a meat eater or non meat eater.. I think this affects everyone. As I stated above if we have no produce to can, freeze or buy fresh..we are in trouble.

We can do without meat per say.but we cant' do without everything.

Hillbilly Housewife replied:
Well I don't know if we depend totally on the arab oil. I thought Canada was pretty rich in oil, unless I'm mistaken. Specifially Alberta.

I don't drive, so I really don't care about gas. All i know is that we have a budget for gas that's 25$ a week, and whatever we don't spend goes in a pot for trips.

cameragirl21 replied:
in all fairness, Mel, it occurred to me after i posted that i have a cat who relies on a duck diet and needs duck (or rabbit or venison) in order to survive, as well as a stray and my parents' Siamese who rely on meat as well.
idk what i'd do if i couldn't feed them and i'm sure they wouldn't be thrilled to go on my vegetarian diet.
so it would be wrong for me to say this wouldn't affect me, which btw, is not what i said or meant in the first place, just adding to your point.

PrairieMom replied:
It isn't just how things directly affect you, things can indirectly affect you with out you even noticing. Like the cost of corn / wheat / soybeans whatever, rises, which effects how much farmers have to pay to keep their live stock, which effects how much they can sell their life stock for, which effects how much processing plants buy / sell their products for, which effects how much your local store can sell their products for. If you
Take a store like Walmart for example. They need to make a profit. If they can't do it off their produce anymore, they will do it off any other thing they sell. Its all supply and demand.
It all filters eventually to the consumer.
Ethanol isn't the answer to our gas crisis either. It takes oil to produce ethanol, then to transport it, since it can't be piped like other gas. I do think its a good start tho.
I'm not really sure there is an answer to our problem.

redchief replied:
Canada and the US have large, untapped oil reserves, much of which is unreachable because of local environmental concerns.

We import so much crude oil for the same reason we import so many other products. We can't make it (or in this case, pump it out of the ground) as inexpensively here.

We really aren't as dependent on Arab oil as many think. In fact, we only get about 11% of our crude oil from the Middle East. Dependence is an environmentalist catch-phrase. It sounds dirty and back-roomish, so it's spouted. Saudi Arabia IS the world's largest producer of crude oil, but most of it actually goes to Europe and Asia. Most of our imported crude oil comes from South America.

Price fluctuations in the oil market closely mirror other markets. All trade markets are volatile and subject to unreasonable over and under value. Remember the dot.com bubble burst in the 90's? Same principal in reverse. There is war in an oil producing region. War in an oil producing region jeopardizes oil availability worldwide. Oil companies pay more for the crude because of the laws of supply and demand, even though there is no real shortage of product. Oil companies don't care since they're simply passing the cost increases on to the consumer and gaining a greater share of the available money than they did formerly. We call that corporate profit. As usual, it's the lowly masses that get stuck in the rear end.

The economic doomsayers and environmental left sleep together. If you don't believe that, stop reading now. This is a given. They're the same people. Soooo, the economic doomsayers say we MUST reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and to do that in an environmentally friendly way, look here at all these cornfields! A closer look proves that carbon emissions will change little with the use of bio-fuels. Funny thing is, this plan is being developed and publicly pushed by the Bush Administration, whom the environmentalists despise as a non-green administration. Politics, I'll tell ya!

By the way, anyone who thinks they don't consume much corn isn't looking hard enough.

cameragirl21 replied:
i don't consume corn in the sense that i don't eat it, except occasionally and i don't cook with corn oil either, i use olive. and i buy my cat expensive food with no fillers, like corn, so i really don't consume it personally.
but idk what else corn is used for.
as to the environment, i'll always be a green so i'll stick to my guns about it being an important issue nowadays.

PrairieMom replied:
EVERYTHING.

cameragirl21 replied:
can i have some "for examples", please?

redchief replied:
Implication? Assumption? Who says I'm not "green?"

I said that the economic doomsayers and the environmentalists are in bed together. That's all I said. In two years this might change. Politics, I'll tell ya!

PrairieMom replied:
I found this at this site:

http://www.kycorn.org/keyissues/newuses/co...sguide.htm#baby

Corn Can Be Found in Common Items...

FOODS

Cereals
Corn Chips
Potato Chips
Tortillas
Corn meal
Baking mixes
Pudding
Jams & Jellies
Salad dressings
Ketchup
Sauces & Marinades
Candies
Low-calorie Sweeteners
Cooking Oil
Margarine

BEVERAGES

Soft Drinks (non-diet)
Fruit juice drinks
Sweetened drinks
Alcoholic beverages

OTHER

Medicines & Supplements
Cosmetics
Toothpaste
Mouthwash
Soaps
Batteries
Crayons
Paints
Inks
Paper
Charcoal Briquettes
Fireworks
Pesticide Powders
Glues
Candles

High fructose corn syrup is in TONS of stuff. Corn syrup solids is the main ingredient in many things that are dairy free like coffee creamer, and in Soy baby formula.

DansMom replied: Just so you know Ed, my husband is NOT an economic doomsayer...

redchief replied:
Fuel. You have a car, you use corn.

Wear make-up? There's corn in that there foundation!

Baskets? Rugs? That Barbie doll? Corn

That baby diaper? Corn

Cereal? Even the non-corn ones often have corn in them.

Many newer generation plastics are being made from corn because they compost.

Livestock feed... even those who don't eat meat should think about the implications. Do you have any leather products?

Animal hooves are also used in cosmetics. There's livestock again.

Wool.

PrairieMom replied: I found this too, at this site:

http://parenting.ivillage.com/baby/bnutrit...0,,898n,00.html

Here is a list of foods or ingredients to watch out for:

* Baking powder (the starch in common baking powder is corn starch)
* Caramel color (often made from corn syrup)
* Confectioners sugar (often has corn starch added to it to prevent it from sticking)
* Corn (fresh, canned, frozen, dried)
* Cornmeal (as in corn bread, corn muffins, corn chips)
* Corn oil (this may be fine as little or no corn protein, which is the allergic part of the corn, is contained in it)
* Cornstarch
* Corn syrup
* Dextrin
* Dextrose
* Fructose
* Hominy
* Invert sugar or invert syrup
* Lactic acid
* Maize
* Maltodextrins
* Mannitol
* Sorbitol
* Starch, food starch, modified food starch. Any of these may be corn starch
* Vanilla extract ( often made with corn syrup in them)
* Vegetable anything ( such as vegetable broth, vegetable starch or vegetable gum, because you don't know if the vegetable in question is corn)

cameragirl21 replied:
ok, so just to put things into perspective, i narrowed down from that list what i use, just by myself, so it's not THAT much, but it still counts.
also, i revile HFCS and won't buy anything that contains it.
this is not to say that i don't care about the corn shortage, just showing it from my perspective of usage.

redchief replied:
Shhhh... Neither am I and I AM an environmentalist. My politics are just all wrong.

redchief replied:
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

PrairieMom replied:
Okay.....

so even if you don't use much corn... what about soy? the same problems that we are talking about with corn will be / are happening with Soy. Soy is in TONS of stuff too.

PrairieMom replied:
Its in WAY more stuff that what was listed. I just can't seem to locate a site that has the answers for me.

cameragirl21 replied:
i don't use soy anymore either because it's bad for the thyroid and i have hypothyroidism.
see, this is a tough argument with me because i buy only organic things from whole foods or other organic markets.
but i do use SOME corn things which i did admit to.

PrairieMom replied: Here is another one:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/allergydietitian/fa/corn.html

cameragirl21 replied:
i'm just teasing you guys, Tara and Ed, even though *i* don't personally use as much corn as most i realize it's still an important issue.
c'mon, Tara, i don't want Alexis to have to forgo Barbie dolls because there's no corn to make them!

PrairieMom replied:
I'm not targeting you.
Just recently a friend of mine had her son allergy tested. They tested him for milk, eggs, peanuts, all that normal stuff, they also tested him for corn. I was like WTH? why did they test him for corn? and she was like . So I got to looking one day and discovered that it was because corn is in EVERYTHING. Actually, I think that the "crunchier" you are the better, and my friend is pretty crunchy, but I am more of a convenience food person, and HFCS is in most the stuff we eat. I'm trying to be crunchier, but its hard here, we don't have a whole foods, and organic stuff is so spendy.

TANNER'S MOM replied: Well I think that it affects us.. who don't use corn in the way of pricing.

Especially with the flooding area's. That means people who produce things in other areas, other vegatables and other products will get more for the dollar..and drive our prices of everything else up.

Hillbilly Housewife replied:
I'm just about as crunchy as it gets, well food wise anyways.

I don't use all that much corn either. We buy a lot of our stuff from organic suppliers and health stores, like our toothpaste, deodorants, medecines... all organic and natural products.

Corn corn corn.

I can't help but think of Beavis and Butthead, and their cornhole conversations.

Hmmm, I do use corn meal now and then.



I can't wait to see what "the government" decides is in our best interest.

Twelve Volt Man replied: Our local news ran a story about how beer prices will increase, due to the increased demand for ethanol-based fuel. Actually, I've heard beer prices have been increasing for months, but I haven't seen a difference yet. No big deal to me, really... I'll pay what it takes to have a tasty beer in my hand.

punkeemunkee'smom replied: Now when they start messing when BEER prices...you know we must be in a national crisis!

Honestly it doesn't matter what your eating preferences are,vegitarian or meat eater- IF all the possiblities of food shortage come to pass you WILL BE affected just the same maybe even more so since your food choice is already limited. The plight of the farmer/rancher is NOT limited to the men and women who work the land to supply the rest, it is very much a national issue...If they can't make it doing what they do-the rest of the country will be on their own to feed/clothe themselves....

Mommy2BAK replied: