We have been so on the go lately, and although we have eaten at home, I usually have a pantry I keep stocked with many bulk items, plus canned goods and then an upright freezer with meats and breads (bought at a local bread thrift store in quantity).

Today we went into the store to get a few things, and made some observations about prices.

Eggs have finally gone down, I suspect it is a local product. Meats have stayed pretty steady, local too. Canned goods, up a little, not too bad. Then there was the cat food, went up quite a bit, and I think I know why. A main ingredient in most pet foods are crude proteins (meaning the icky stuff they don't sell in the meat department), and a lot have RICE and corn in it (we'll see about corn prices this summer), which, BTW, our store had almost ZERO rice. The bulk section had a sign put out that supplies are being limited due to a shortage.

Now I heard on Fox News that this was just not so, and it was all rumor and panic causing major distributors limiting it to keep from having a shortage in the first place (people are funny things, they think something will be unavailable to them and they start trying to buy all they can).

Then of course the slowly upward creeping gas/oil prices, which we all know the food prices go up due to that.

We also realized that most illegal immigrants we know of buy huge bags of rice, it is a main staple in their diets. I wonder what they are thinking? Will this, plus other things encourage them to start considering packing up and going home?

We won't panic, we keep hoping that truly there is no real problem with gas and food prices and there really is not a rice shortage, but it is an ingenious plan to scare off invaders once they think the teet is drying up..... !!