Last Sane Man Standing - Blog of Corey Deitz

"The Cost of Cheese"

July 19, 2007

Today, while at the supermarket, I decided I wanted a little smoked cheese to put on crackers. Maybe I haven't looked for a while, but the price of cheese was astounding. Apparently, anything better than "Kroger economy American cheese slices" is at least twice if not three times the cost of a gallon of gas.

I'm not kidding.

I purchased a small chunk of cheese - smaller than my wallet folded over - and it was $5.00. That's almost two gallons of gas. Why is no one jumping up and down and screaming about the Evil Cheese Corporations like they do the oil companies?

I'm only speculating but I think the problem is we don't have enough cows to make milk which eventually becomes cheese. It's your basic supply and demand problem.

Yet, upon realizing this I have also come to a divide in the road which allows me to either promote the breeding of more cheese cows or promote the environment.

For you see, cows create methane and methane is bad. According to Wikipedia: "Methane is a relatively potent greenhouse gas with a high global warming potential."

Egads! The dilemna!

If I want more cows to lower the price of cheese, I have to give in to Global Warming. Oh World, how cruel you are!

Oh, and as a side note: not only is cheese not "Green" but if it's "smoked" cheese like the stuff I purchased, well, you can just imagine how many pollutants went up some smokestack somewhere to lay on that smoky layer of goodness.

That makes my chunk of cheese TWICE as greenless as I suspected. I guess the only thing to do is try and buy some carbon credits so I can eat my cheese in peace. (Which brings up the question: why don't they sell carbon credits at the supermarket?)

So, the next time somebody yells, "Hey, who cut the cheese?" he may not be referring to some stinky air - but another unabashed contributor to Global Warming.