Dear Mr President Elect, The energy bill you voted for and praised included an ethanol provision that has us burning food for fuel, has pushed the cost of all sorts of food higher, harms the poor of this nation and has contributed to global food shortages and starvation. Not to mention the damage done to the environment the world over as they cut back on carbon sinks to grow ethanol for the US.

Food is an issue Mr President elect as well as the environment and you should not have voted for an energy bill that had bad energy policies in it that harm people and harm the enviornment.

Please Mr President elect, undo the damage you and your fellow congressmen have done. You got it wrong Mr President elect (McCain or Obama) which one of you will promise to stand up to the corn farmers and undo that ethanol bill? Any takers Mr President Elect?

My 30 yr old daughter started canning fruit and now we are learning about canning for next summer's vegetables grown locally here in Washington state. She's hooked on canning and got me started as well. Canning is becoming a lost art and I'm ashamed to admit I never learned any secrets about it from my Grandmother before she passed. I'm planning on growing sugar snaps green beans next year for us to can. We live near Tacoma and unless one has a really warm south side next to a building or wall, it's almost impossible to grow tomatos and peppers because it's too cool here. Experimenting and talking to other 'backyard farmers' is the best way to learn. We all would benefit from getting back to our agricultural roots; our future may depend on it.

WAKE UP AMERICA!

people are more aware of the process of and repercussions due to the production of food. so let us consider that healthier [sic] (a "sic" i agree with) foods currently cost more. this is due to their 1. rarity 2. import costs 3. production costs.let's take an example less obvious than say, organic, locally grown fruit. let's say that people start to realize most sliced bread is infused with corn syrup as a sweetener. said people being to resist these breads, opting for breads that advertise themselves as "corn syrup free."

awareness has been initiated, we may say, among the majority class (that is to say, not granola-eating-hippies, as my boyfriend calls the now-burgeoning under class). it is easy to see that many production companies will find other ways to sweeten bread, & thus, look for more affordable ways to do so. why are foods sweetened with agave nectar usually so expensive? well, because they are 1. rare (prompt higher prices) 2. have to be imported 3. cost (currently) more to produce than corn syrup. however, here's the big question: what happens to the corn producers when companies like coca cola, nabisco, & wonder bread slowly phase out corn syrup? or any other food for that matter? personally, i have really enjoyed the success of local food markets, natural food stores, organically grown produce, and general awareness of health of body and earth of recent years. however, i do think that the agricultural System is less evil than most democrats believe, and really a product of extremely shoddy managerial directive from the horribly run USDA & FDA regulators. if we show farmers there is an alternative, then perhaps a unified solution can be reached. let us opt for showing just how marketable foods are when they are more thoughtfully produced.

it is not that affordable food is on the decline. it is that a change in market awareness has changed consumer desire, & therefore, consumer consumption.