Editor’s Note: Judith Weinraub, a reporter and editor at The Washington Post for 25 years, is now a W.K. Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow.

The other night I went to a panel discussion about food literacy — that is, how much more we know about food than we used to. At one point, the subject of today’s rising food costs came up.

But before I get started on the panel reactions, I want to mention that since this month’s floods in the Midwestern farm belt have ruined much of this year’s corn and soybean crops — driving up their prices astronomically and adding to what’s currently considered an ongoing global food crisis — that situation is only going to get worse.

Now back to my recap of the discussion. The thought was raised that Americans are so used to having cheap food — generally eating up only about 10 to 11 percent of our income — that we’re also used to having more cash for other things: clothes, vacations, nice cars, etc. The same is true for Europeans, who traditionally spend about 14 percent of income on edibles. Both don’t seem to be much of a percentage compared to the figures for India (about 50 percent) and Africa (about 70 percent).

The conclusion drawn? How we spend our money really comes down to our values. And faced with soaring food costs, many Americans will have to make choices we haven’t before had to face — like what’s more important: what we put in our bodies or on them. And in Europe, or at least in France, Spain and Italy, cooking with fresh, local foods has always been a source of pride.

Many American families are already suffering from steepening grocery bills. Has it severely cut into your budget yet?