Fuel Vs Food: Ethanol Helps Boost The Price Of Meat

In the big kitchen at the Green Hills Retirement Community in Ames, Iowa, workers scurry about. Chef Chris Stelzer directs platters into the dining hall and expertly flips pancakes while a huge, noisy vent wicks up warm, bacon-scented air.

Stelzer likes to cook the seniors things that remind them of home — meat and potatoes, angus beef, pork loin. It's with these foods that he's seen the most drastic rise in prices.

"The prices of beef and pork have definitely gone up the last few months," Stelzer says. "Tenderloin's gone up about two dollars in the past month or two — a pound — and pork's gone up about a dollar or so."

He says that while meat prices always go up in the holiday season, this year the increase started earlier and went higher.

To read the rest of this story please go to: NPR