Rice flying off the shelves at Costco

With rising food prices and the threat of a world food crisis, Costco says some of its shoppers are stocking up on staples like flour, rice and cooking oil, especially imported jasmine and California-grown rice. "Employees at area Costco stores say they have seen entire pallets filled with hundreds of bags of the rice sell out in minutes," reports the Seattle Times today, adding that Asian restaurants are having a particularly difficult time. Elsewhere, Sam's Club is now limiting the amount of rice you can buy.

This sounds very elitist given the situation around the world, but could you imagine if Seattle sushi places run out of rice? (Shudder.)