Food Industry

There's a tug-of-war underway over food prices between the nation's supermarkets and giant food manufacturers including Nestle, Unilever and Kellogg. The nation's big grocery chains contend that food manufacturers have raised prices too fast and too far, considering large drops in prices for fuel, corn, wheat and other important commodities in recent months. The food companies disagree and say they are still coping with many rising prices themselves.

Don't look for much food from cloned animals or their offspring at your neighborhood supermarket or restaurant any time soon. Despite the Food and Drug Administration's declaration that such meat and milk are safe to eat, it is going to take years for ranchers to produce and raise the animals. Even then, many of the nation's biggest grocers say they are dead set against selling it.

From the world's poorest corners to its most prosperous, people are facing much higher prices for food. Increases are driven by the high cost of energy to grow and transport crops, poor harvests in major exporting countries such as Australia, increased demand in developing nations including China and India, and a rush to produce biofuels. High prices and shortages have led to violent protests and political turmoil.

If Americans are feeling frustrated about food, who can blame us? It's not just the bugs in the burger or the hormones in Chinese seafood -- or even the skyrocketing prices. It's that most of us feel powerless to fix things. We may be a nation of do-it-yourselfers when it comes to deck repair or tax returns, but even as our industrial food system grows less reliable, our reliance on that system has never been higher. What's to be done? Growing our own isn't a solid option anymore.

It wasn't normal for a service at Calvary Baptist Church to end with a 911 call. Then again, the burning sensation parishioners felt as they sipped their communion grape juice wasn't normal, either. "As soon as we drank it, we knew something was wrong," said the Rev. Anthony Gibson, the pastor of the church in Darien, Conn. The congregants called the police. The police called the grape juice company.

The federal government Tuesday expanded its salmonella warning nationwide about three kinds of tomatoes as more retailers and restaurants stopped offering them and growers said sales were plummeting. Officials at the Food and Drug Administration said they were still searching for the origin of the tainted fresh Roma, plum and red round tomatoes, though industry insiders and early reports suggested that the field had been narrowed to Florida or Mexico.

AN EMOTIONAL ovation greeted chef Grant Achatz of Chicago's Alinea restaurant when he was named outstanding chef for 2007 at Sunday night's James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony in New York City. Achatz, known for his avant-garde cuisine drawing on principles revealed by "molecular gastronomy," is also a cancer survivor, and his award lent poignancy to the annual event.

A federal investigation into possible food-price fixing has been expanded to include two major industries, tomato processing and egg products. The Justice Department confirmed Tuesday that prosecutors were conducting separate inquiries into whether the tomato and egg industries engaged in anti-competitive practices. Federal prosecutors also have been looking at possible price fixing in the citrus industry for at least a year.

Joseph and Victoria Hurley are the kind of customers that keep restaurateurs up at night. The Hurleys, parents of two young boys, have restructured their lives. The couple -- she's a marketing consultant and he's a much-traveled computer troubleshooter -- dumped their Jeep Grand Cherokee for a Lexus hybrid SUV that gets twice the mileage. Dinners out at places such as the Cheesecake Factory and the Daily Grill are rare treats instead of a weekly habit.

Restaurants are being told to list calorie counts on their menus. Schools are banning bake sales, and cities are outlawing new fast-food restaurants in some neighborhoods. State and local governments, concerned about the growing cost of obesity and diabetes and the ever-higher cost of healthcare, are acting more like food police. And more regulations may be ahead.