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There are several reasons this Thanksgiving holiday may cost us more than in years past. First off the fuel prices are still up by around $4 a gallon for diesel being that all the transport trucks run on it. The other main concern is that around April the Associated Press (AP) was reporting that across the nation, farmers have had to kill about 22 million birds, mostly egg-laying chickens but also including 1.8 million turkeys that were hit with bird flu.

Couple that with rising inflation and Thanksgiving turkeys are going to be pricey this year. You may want to purchase your Thanksgiving turkey super early as the shortages are starting to show already at some of our local stores throughout Texas as you'll see in the photos below.

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In 2019 turkey producers across the country were beginning to cut back on the number of birds they were raising because the price of turkeys was dropping drastically. All that has been magnified by the ravages of avian flu, which killed millions of the nation’s turkeys back then. Thus reducing the number of birds available to purchase in the grocery store, according to a New York Times report.

The Centers for Disease Control says "the cases of avian flu do not really present an immediate public health concern. No human cases of the avian flu virus have been detected in the United States." It remains safe to eat poultry products. Cooking poultry and eggs to an internal temperature of 165 ˚F kills bacteria and viruses.

USDA has stated that 23 states have documented cases in commercial and backyard flocks across the U.S. What does all this really mean? Well, the turkey prices are going to be considerably higher than they were previously. Some experts say that prices could double.

While turkey meat prices have risen in the past 24 months so have all other food prices according to both the USDA and the Consumer Price Index for example milk is up nearly 16%, bread is up 15%, fresh produce is up over 15% and the list goes on. This means Inflation is gobbling up our Thanksgiving food budget.

My advice to my family members is that if we're going to have the traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving this year, we had better purchase our turkeys early.

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