Nestle chief warns of new food riots

http://news.yahoo.com/nestle-chief-warns-food-riots-115947524.html ^ | 10-7-11 | AFP

[dynachrome]

The head of the world's biggest food company Nestle said on Friday that rising food prices have created conditions "similar" to 2008 when hunger riots took place in many countries.

"The situation is similar (to 2008). This has become the new reality," the Swiss giant's chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe told the Salzburger Nachrichten daily in his native Austria in an interview.

"We have reached a level of food prices that is substantially higher than before. It will likely settle down at this level.

"If you live in a developing country and spend 80 percent of your income on food then of course you are going to feel it more than here (in Europe) where it is maybe eight percent."

In 2008, the price of cereals reached historic levels, provoking a food crisis and riots in a number of African countries, as well as in Haiti and the Philippines.

[VanShuyten]

Very cheap if your eat tortillas.

Americans don't acually eat that much corn. Corn is a feed for cattle or an industrial feed stock for starch and sugar. In fact, as a soil scientist buddy of mine said, it's best to think of corn as any other industrial raw material, such as iron ore, oil or wood pulp.

[gogogodzilla]

And that’s what the article is about. People in developing countries... who tend to eat the cheapest foods they can find, as they don’t have much money.

[firebrand]

Central New York farmers lost their harvest because of Hurricane Irene flooding.

[eyedigress]

Welcome to flyover country.

[leenie312]

WAL*MART doesn’t stock local produce..it is all shipped in.We have to go to the local store to get fresh NY produce.

[MV=PY]

Americans don't acually eat that much corn. Corn is a feed for cattle or an industrial feed stock for starch and sugar. In fact, as a soil scientist buddy of mine said, it's best to think of corn as any other industrial raw material, such as iron ore, oil or wood pulp.

Sorry, not so! Check out Omnivore's Dilemma. It's an eye-opener.

[VanShuyten]

My comment was in reply to gogogodzilla, who thought that grinding up all the corn used in ethanol production to make corn meal would lower prices. I pointed out that Americans don't eat much corn, and that corn was an industrial feedstock to produce sugar and starch (and oil and protein and other chemicals). We eat lots of wheat in bread and pasta, and a fair amount of rice and beans, but not much corn or corn meal. However, the industrial products of corn are in many things we eat, as well as the fuel in our cars, the boxes and bags some foods come in and some of the drugs we take. Many of those products could be made from other vegetable derivatives or petroleum, but corn is cheap and easy to handle.

[firebrand]

Oh. Thanks.

[MV=PY]

I understand your point about not eating much corn “directly.”

Onivore’s Dilemma traces the foods found in a supermarket back to original sources, and the amount of corn we consume is nothing short of amazing. It is possible to detect the amount of corn a human has consumed by analyzing his hair, and North Americans consume far more food derived from corn than any society in history.

For example, at McDonald’s, the chicken McNugget is cornfed chicken, the breading is corn, the coloring of the coating is a corn derivative. All of the soft drinks are sweetened with fructose. French fries are cooked in corn oil.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081111-fast-food-corn.html

You might find the book enlightening. I was quite surprised what our food supply really looks like.