High wheat prices

To fix this: High wheat prices raise grocery costs

You might want to try this:

Simple Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

From the Yahoo article: "Meanwhile, some consumers are taking the opposite path — baking more. King Arthur's Bittel said that while store-bought bread is running between $3 and $5, a home baked loaf will cost about 60 cents.

"That's up from 40 cents from a year ago, but Bittel said his company nevertheless has seen growing sales of bread-making machines."

Don't bother buying a bread machine until you make bread a few times with equipment you have on hand. Mark Bittman tells you how to make bread dough in two minutes in the food processor (How to Cook Everything) and if there's interest, I will post his recipe. You're not saving money on buying bread if you buy a new machine at $100-200 a pop. And if you don't have a food processor or heavy-duty stand mixer, you can always just knead it by hand. Or make the famous no-knead yeast bread.

More on surging food prices, with details, at the New York Times. Be sure to click on my Frugal Food category for tips and links on dealing with food price rises.

Photo by Tom Burke, from Wikipedia.

Comments

[Richard Silverstein]

My friend, Mike Rose, co-owner of Semifreddi's Bakery tells me that in the past few weeks the cost of two days worth of flour for the bakery has risen from $8,000 to $24,000! Does that tell you something?

[Leila Abu-Saba]

It tells me that Mike Rose is losing money. He can't triple the price of a loaf of bread in two days - or two months. A loaf of Semifreddi's ciabatta or other artisan bread is around $3.50 at the moment. What is he going to do, charge 10.50? No way. So the price is eating into his profit margin.

I hope things ease up... we could be in for economic trouble that hurts people's stomachs.

Meanwhile - baking at home starts to look more attractive, if you have the time.

[Richard Silverstein]

He's going to have to raise his prices. Think what all of this will do to the cost of living & inflation here in the U.S. We're in for some hard times ahead.

[wu ming]

i got a used bread machine at a thrift shop a year ago for pretty cheap, and the resulting bread has been both tastier, reliably free of sketchy additives, and tastier.