Anchorage food prices soar with fuel costs

[Newsjock]

Source: Anchorage Daily News

... After remaining stable for several years, the cost of a typical weekly shopping cart of food for an Anchorage family of four shot up 10 percent during the first three months of this year -- from $121.31 to $132.88, according to preliminary statistics reported Monday by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service.

Some individual items have climbed even higher. From March 2007 to March 2008, ground beef rose 18 percent. Eggs, 22 percent. White bread, 33 percent. Cheddar cheese, 61 percent. Rice, 85 percent.

... Cathy Squartsoff in Port Lions, on Kodiak Island, said she and her husband are taking the ferry up to Anchorage to load up on groceries for their lodge. The cost of putting three vehicles on a ferry and shopping at Sam's Club and Costco is cheaper than buying groceries in Kodiak, she said. "It is just more expensive," she said of the island prices.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/anchorage/story/389900.html

[blue sky at night]

1. raising food...

it is what our forefathers did to survive. Seeds anyone? I have owned a troybilt since the early eighties, firing her up pretty soon here. I may be getting a little more serious about gardening this summer, especially since there is no way I can afford a vacation.

[AndyTiedye]

2. That May Be Rather Difficult in Alaska

Not much of a growing season there, is there?

[Kool Kitty]

3. My sister lived in Anchorage for a couple of years and, if I am

remembering correctly, they have a good growing season. I went to a fair with her and saw the most amazing supersized vegetables. She said she thought it was because of the long days.

[Blue_In_AK]

4. We do have a good growing season for certain things.

We can usually plant mid- to late May, and the first frost doesn't usually come until the middle or end of September. We have great success with potatoes, carrots and other root vegetables, cabbage and other cole crops, chard, peas, zucchini, green beans (I always grow the purple ones, and they do very well). Some people grow tomatoes, but they do best in a greenhouse or under plastic. We have special varieties for the north.

Even though the season is relatively short, we have extended daylight, so you can almost sit and watch stuff grow. As the poster above me mentioned, in the Matanuska Valley north of here, very gigantic vegetables are grown, 50-60 pound cabbages, monster zucchinis, etc.

Here are some pix from last year's state fair...








That's a lot of coleslaw. :P

[Tab]

7. The silver lining to global warming

may be that you can now grow food in Alaska

[dysfunctional press]

10. global warming won't change the length of the growing season all that much...

plants respond to the length of the days sunlight much more than the temperatures.

[Psephos]

5. Presumably Alaskan citizens' oil royalty payments from the state will also be heading up n/t

[Arctic Dave]

6. My wife works for a grocery store chain

she orders the the groceries and other things. Yesterday they had huge price increases. They have been trying to be sneaky up until then, smaller servings for the same price, raise the price and then mark it down, etc. She came and said that she raised dog food $3.00.
As for growing our own veggies we have a little patch in our back yard. Today I turned my compost to get it started for the year. Hello zucchini bread.:9

[dipsydoodle]

8. So is that worse than this ?

Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt:
It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=4212012

[blue sky at night]

9. where is freaking ronald reagan when you need him...

wasn't he there to save the day?

[dysfunctional press]

11. the soil that they use does have some nutrition to it, though...

that's why it's referred to as a traditional remedy.