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oh gosh i hope not...that'd be baaaaaaad...

I think communal gardens and personal gardens are going to come back big time. Diet companies could finally be real losers! Seriously ???????? I have lean and fit kids and have never had to fight with them over what or how much they eat. . Know why? There are no chips, no pop, no cookies, no cake, no candy ??????? no junk food in my house. We never fight over what they eat b/c anything they reach for is OK! I think the diet companies that are going to be in BIG trouble are the ones that make your food for you and send it to you like http://www.nutrisystem.com http://www.chefsdietsolutions.com and http://www.thefreshdiet.com They are going to get hit 3 ways: 1. Consumers are not going to be as fat anymore b/c they will not be able to buy buckets of soft drink at the movies for 99 cents (guess what that really is ??????? cheap CORN SYRUP!) 2. They will have to pay a lot more for the ???????fresh??????? food supply they buy.. if they can even get it! 3. Their shipping and transportation costs are going to be much higher Check out Nutrisystem. They are publically traded (NTRI) and are currently at $ 16.45 ..they were at $26.98 at the beginning of the year.

Jen O - I think you may be referring to a program called "community supported agriculture" or CSA for short. It's where you pay a fee for the season and you have a share in the local farms crop. For instance, we have a couple of CSA programs in Naperville. Each week participants will get a crate of fresh produce directly from the farm. You don't get to shop for what you want, you get what you get. It's a great program if you have people in your family that like a wide variety of produce. Some of ours also offer organic dairy, meat and eggs. There are typically waiting lists for the eggs! In a sense, this is like buying "stock" in a company without going through a broker, etc...

funny how talk about bananas and gas/oil prices lead us to diet stocks... who would have thought. is anyone on weightwatchers? do you like their food or just use their program (are they the ones with the points?)?

well, a Vermont senator actually asked his constituents about their economic stories... and one couple said they had reduced their 3 meals a day to 2, just to conserve. and i know people who are returning to their love of gardening so you just may be right about Victory Gardens (for those of you wondering where Victory Gardens came from... it was back in World War II where folks worked their own soil to raise food for families and friends to enable more supplies to be shipped to our troops around the world the stories are heart-wrenching for so many people. i am hearing them every day... yes, this will be good for seed companies although Monsanto (MON), the maker of seeds and other products for farmers, just got taken to town for playing games with farmers to basically require that they use Monsanto seeds and not competitors...

No question that we are facing a food shortage and rising food prices. Do you think this will be the magic bullet to finally do something about our expanding waistlines in the US? If so ??????? goodbye Nutrisystem! Wonder what's going to happen to all the diet and diet food companies? Could we be looking at the re-emergence of ???????Victory Gardens???????? Who are the biggest seed producers anyway?

amyliebs raises a great point about local farmers and the impact. the one trend working in their favor is that people are increasingly saying, 'hey, i want natural foods.' and where can they best get that, but right in their neighborhood. now, it's tough for those farmers to compete with big food companies and grocery stores like a Safeway or Kroeger but there is a new service i just read about in Vanity Fair where you can -- via the Internet -- order fresh, organic foods from the farms in your area. you get the best in product and you can support the local farmers. what a win! it will be interesting to see how that effects the big stores longer-term. the internet makes so many things possible, doesn't it?

...going a step further, there was a recent article in the paper about it becoming fashionable for people to plant vegetable gardens again. I have always used the "pesticide chart" when buying fruits and veggies for my family-- buying organic fruits and veggies that have a high pesticide load and conventional for low load stuff. Last year I bought an organic farm share for fruit and I would consider doing it again for veggies as well. Just bought bananas at Costco this afternoon, 3# for 1.39. I bought a pineapple and a honeydew as well..

And it's not just the rising gas prices... all of the flooding in the Midwest is also going to effect crop production and the resulting pricing of food. I wonder if these factors will make some of the big supermarket chains suffer in the future because they are so dependent on trucking in their goods from industrial farms, etc ... I wonder if we'll see that local stores with local ties to farmers will be able to compete on a cost, not to mention, quality basis. We have good friends from Russia and she cried the first time that she walked into an American supermarket. She could not believe the variety. We have become accustomed to a huge variety of produce in this country. Maybe this is about to change when it's too expensive to ship in produce from other countries.