A friend of mine who is in a Master's program in Cairo recently sent a mass email to her stateside friends. Mixed in with her amusing tales of being the clumsy American in Egypt and the embarrassing consequences of mangling Arabic, she dropped a note about massive food shortages and sky-high food prices (especially wheat) in Cairo.

Leading the rather sheltered, middle-class life that I do, I hadn't heard anything about the shortage. But once my interest was piqued, news about the shortage in Egypt - and similar shortages around the world - started popping up like Whac-A-Moles.

According to the Jerusalem Post, a number of interrelated factors are causing the crisis in Egypt (which has led to rioting) including:

"..the rise in oil and energy prices, the economic boom in nations like India and China which is increasing demand, climate and weather-related events such as droughts and floods, and competition between food and fuel, where more land and agricultural crops are being used for bio-fuels than for food."

Closer to home, the New York Times reported:

"Faced with strong worldwide food demand and the accompanying higher prices, American farmers are beginning to respond to the signals of the market. In a new government report, farmers said they would make significant cuts in corn acreage this year in favor of soybeans."

As corn acreage goes down (and more of it is devoted to ethanol), corn prices are predicted to go up. Unfortunately, just about every mainstream product in the...

The AP reported this week that inmates in Vermont prisons are suing the Vermont Prison System for cruel and unusual punishment: digusting dinner food.

Instead of the processed meat and cheese-heavy dinners served throughout most of America's prison system, the worst offenders in Vermont (particularly those inmates with a history of disruptive and dangerous behavior at meal times) are served Nutraloaf: a mixture of cubed whole wheat bread, nondairy cheese, raw carrots, spinach, raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and dehydrated potato flakes.

The prison system argues that the "square meal" is nutritionally complete. More importantly, because it can be served without utensils or trays, it doubles as an effective tool for behavior control. Speaking about Nutraloaf, Vermont Corrections Commissioner Rob Hofmann said:

"It's commonplace in other states as a way of providing nutrition in a mechanism that dissuades inmates from throwing feces, urine, trays and silverware." (Indeed, the "prison loaf" technique is utilized across the country.)

Things could be worse, argues Vermont Department of Corrections staff, Robert Kupec Jr. The Rutland Herald reported that, "the old method [for discouraging disruptive behavior at meals] was to blend up the prison's regular meal and give it to the prisoners to drink, when they couldn't be given trays or utensils." In comparison to a Willy Wonka-style meal in a drink, Kupec calls Nutraloaf a "much better alternative."

The prisoners, however, argue otherwise claiming that the inedible Nutraloaf goes above-and-beyond typical punishment.

Honestly, with its mish-mash of whole food...