Spring Break
'Beginnings of Marathons'
Food prices in foreign countries
spark riots, clean energy discussion
David Zugnoni
Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: Opinion
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It was a burrito. It found the bottom of my stomach like an anvil finds the bottom of a plastic garbage bag, and it made me feel like an utter mess.
I love burritos, and they've been keeping me alive for years, so I would never say anything bad about the burrito itself.
What did me in was my decision to eat the burrito at 10:30 p.m. on a day when all I ate was some pecans, apricots, carrots, Dorito crumbs, a piece of crystallized ginger (you should try it), and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Stupid American. I had all kinds of food to choose from and I still couldn't get it right.
I'd be ashamed to tell my story to someone in Haiti or Bangladesh or Egypt, where riots have broken out over increasing food prices, according to an April 15 article on CNN.com.
"In just two months, rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come," said World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who was quoted in the article.
My best buddy, George W. Bush, ordered the release of $200 million in emergency food aid Monday to help the countries in the most trouble.
Not bad, but I wonder if our distinguished president is just trying to avoid getting lectured by Pope Benedict XVI during the leader of the Catholic Church's visit to Washington this week.
The offering was actually $300 million shy of the amount requested by the World Food Program.
Oh well, I guess not everybody gets what they want.
But wait; there's more.
In the government's efforts to promote clean energy use, the production of corn-based ethanol has risen, which has the demand and price of corn rising.
"We've been putting our food into the gas tank," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, as quoted in the CNN article.
Bummer. It seems we can't do anything right. Our focus on global warming, energy efficiency and all things "green" might solve one issue while making another worse.
According to a New York Times article in the same issue, some economic ministers from poor countries expressed grief Sunday in Washington over how the West has addressed global warming by subsidizing the conversion of food products into oil substitutes.
Our foresight makes us look snobbish. That makes sense. Things must be going really well for us to be considering a future threat we can't see, while those in foreign lands have dire threats slapping them in the face.
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