Inflation in food prices often hidden

Inflation has been diabolically sneaking up on us through the food chain. Check the net content weights on your food labels; you may be in for many nasty surprises.

A year or two ago, an individual serving of yogurt came in an 8-ounce carton. Now it comes in a 6-ounce carton, but the cost is still the same. That amounts to a 20 percent increase in price.

Many canned and packaged foods that used to be in one pound (16-ounce) containers have been reduced to 14 or 15 ounces, but there was no reduction in the price.

What was a 32-ounce carton of orange juice a year ago is, in many cases, now 28 ounces, but the price is unchanged.

This is only a small sample of sneaking inflation, and I doubt any of it gets factored within government cost-of-living statistics.

Donald Froelich

Mount Prospect