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Comment by dgellow | Hacker News Reader

Add to that the USAID shutdown and other impacts to humanitarian relief caused by the DOGE team. It’s all coming together for a really nightmarish time for developing countries

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I'm not certain how recently you were in the grocery store but it's getting pretty serious in developed countries as well - not famine levels, for sure, but meat prices in Canada are going crazy right now and we're just feeling the first wave of the supply shocks - this will get a lot worse before it gets better.

Perfect time to explore alternatives to eating meat.

If your pitch to the general American electorate to solve the affordability crisis is to become vegetarian good luck getting elected.

I actually cook extensively with non-animal proteins but I enjoy the choice to do otherwise and, if it's going to be curtailed, I'd prefer it happen for a reason more meaningful that some idiotic international blunder.

I've seen tofu go down in price in recent years. It's incredible. I think my local store is doing a block of extra firm for under $1.50? It used to be $2

America is also having a whey protein shortage, but that's mostly because it's very popular right now and we're eating the available supply of whey powder.

I do not eat meat so I couldn’t say. I haven’t yet seen large increases in Germany for what I buy but I wouldn’t be surprised if the overall prices have been trending up. Not yet to the Covid era, where I could see the rice increase in price every time I would do groceries — and it still hasn’t come down :(

I have found it most dramatic in meat prices but the gluten-free baking flours my partner needs to use have also noticeably increased and I think those (and legumes, especially lentils) are likely to be some of the hardest hit in the long run. Chickpeas, lentils and green peas are sort of the unsung heroes of gluten free baking.

That sucks :( Hopefully you can stock them in large quantity before the price increase too much

I have personally seen considerable increases in grocery ingredient expenses for everything I buy which isn't meat. Yes, buying beef or chicken breast is more expensive now as well, but not eating meat would not have a significant impact in my family's much greater annual grocery expenses vs. the same number of people and for the same calendar period of time in 2022 or 2023.

I mentioned meat because the person I responded to mentioned it. I really don’t know the price of meat given I do not consume any of it, I wasn’t trying to say going vegetarian would save you from inflation

Not one, but two responses from vegans telling you to just stop eating meat. A bit of a classic.

Well one was just commenting that they don't observe meat prices - I don't mind that at all though I have seen non-meat groceries go up as well (just less so than the meat).

I am not vegan, and didn’t tell them to stop eating meat

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