Quickie: How to eat well on a food stamp budget: $68.88

By GottaLaff

Today's Quickie:

A sign of the times:

To find out how well you can eat on food stamps, the AP asked two chefs and a magazine food editor to plan out seven days of meals for a family of four using that budget: $68.88.

I wonder how much it cost to figure that out.

That was today's Quickie. Will you still respect me in the morning?

As Food Prices Soar, So Do Sales Of Spam

By Paddy

Now you know exactly how bad things are.

(AP) Love it, hate it or laugh at it - at least it's inexpensive.

Sales of Spam - that much maligned meat - are rising as consumers are turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already stretched food budgets.

What was once cheeky, silly and the subject of a musical (as Monty Python mocked the meat in a can), is now back on the table as people turn to the once-snubbed meat as costs rise, analysts say.

Food prices are increasing faster than they've risen since 1990, at 4 percent in the U.S. last year, according to the Agriculture Department. Many staples are rising even faster, with white bread up 13 percent last year, bacon up 7 percent and peanut butter up 9 percent.