Organic milk, boxed drinks, and world hunger

What constitutes a "global food crisis?"

According to a front page article in today's Washington Post, it's high prices on organic meats and milk:

The last thing Marti Tracy wants to do on a Saturday is clip coupons. But last month the 34-year-old Bowie resident felt she no longer had a choice. She'd already given up organic meat and decided to buy organic milk only for her 2-year-old son, not for the whole family.

Tracy and her partner also stopped buying the cereals they like in favor of whatever was on sale; stopped picking up convenient single-size packs of juice, water or crackers; and, in order to save gas, stopped going to multiple stores. "I find the whole thing a huge hassle, but I've reached a tipping point," said Tracy, a government human resources specialist who is pregnant with her second child. "Clearly, I'm not unable to feed my family. But I just can't feed my family the way I'd like to feed them."

Indeed, the horror of having to do all your shopping at one store is hard to stomach, as is the thought of having to eat a box of bad cereal. But, if the level of "crisis" has reached this point in America, think of how hard it must be on those poor folks in third-world Africa --- I bet they're having a hard time even finding organic milk.

Seriously though, I have kids and a penchant for Oreo cookies. Therefore, I'm well aware of how much milk costs these days. I don't deny that high grocery bills are affecting families, but to render the high price of boutique foods part of the "global food crisis" is quite a stretch.