Soaring food prices, like soaring oil prices, are hitting hardest those who can least afford it, as well as the emergency food providers set up to help them:

With the price of a loaf of bread approaching that of a gallon of gas – isn’t it about time a refrigerator manufacturer follows Chrysler’s lead and offers a guaranteed price on groceries? – some in the media have begun to look at the effect on the nation’s 35 million people already suffering from recurrent hunger.

The unsurprising answer: “It pretty much sucks,” says Joel Berg… [read more]

NOTE: After I submitted my op-ed yesterday morning, Crain’s NY ran an excellent article with an in-depth look at how soup kitchens and food pantries are straining under the load. (Money stat: “The Food Bank For New York City, which provides the majority of food supplies for the city’s 600 pantries, is witnessing the sharpest decline in donations in a quarter of a century.”) Highly recommended reading.