Energy, Biofuels, China, Collapsing Dollar - All Combining To Hammer Grocery Shoppers - CBS News

The forces behind the rise in food prices - China's economic boom, a growing biofuels industry and a weak U.S. dollar - are global and not letting up anytime soon. Grocery receipts are bulging because the raw ingredients, packaging and fuel that go into the price of foodstuffs cost more than they have in decades.

It's the worst bout of food inflation since 1990, but not yet worrisome to the economy, said John Lonski, chief economist of Moody's Investor Service. While high food prices can cut into consumers' discretionary spending, the 4 percent rate of food inflation is still far below the crippling double-digit levels of the 1970s.

Still, consumers anxious for relief in the checkout line may have to keep waiting. Andrea Williams, 32, can track the rise in prices of the food she buys for herself, her husband and their three children by looking back at the receipts she says she meticulously saves. "In 2004, I bought a gallon of milk, it was a $1.63," Williams said before heading into a Wal-Mart in Savoy, Ill., about 140 miles south of Chicago. A gallon of milk cost nearly $3 a gallon last month in her area.

A couple of years ago, Williams would spend about $250 a month on one big grocery trip. Now she says she's spending $250 on big trips every two weeks.

EDIT

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/08/business/main3344650.shtml

when the masses have to decide to eat, drive, or heat their home. The global unrest is going to have a devastating effect on not just economies, but in wars, and the resulting crash of humanity...