Bread Blues

A couple of Christmases ago, I thought my sister had gone off the deep end. You see, when her family started to get low on bread, she told her lovely son that she would make more that day. No problem. Been there, done that. But then she sweetly pulled out a ginormous grinder from her cupboard in order to GRIND HER OWN GRAIN. Well, I thought, she'd be amply prepared in case Utah ever turned into a scenario from "Red Dawn". Then I read Boston.com's article about "High Wheat Prices". The price of wheat has more than tripled during the last three months and experts expect that 80 percent of groceries will follow with their own spike. Apparently, Wheat, is the plankton of our little land mammal food chain, and it used to feed cattle, poultry and dairy cows and therefore is associated with everything those guys produce from eggs to milk. Not to mention that skyrocketing gas prices is making wheat even costlier to get to market.

You may think the only option is to buy less. But you might want to turn the other cheek and bake more. Store bought white bread cost an average of $0.85 per pound in 1998 and $1.03 in February 2006. The price last month? $1.32 per pound. While that makes store-bought bread run between $3 and $5, a home-baked loaf will cost about 60 cents (less, I supposed if you are grinding your own wheat to boot). As for me, I'll be looking to take some wheat grinding lessons from my sister.