Barron's and Bloomberg BusinessWeek -- two respected business publications -- both ran competing stories with very different predictions about the cost of food in the future.

As you might expect, TV news outlets are only picking up on the doom and gloom prediction about food prices. But nobody really knows which way things are headed.

That's why it's more important than ever for you to be smarter when you're shopping for food. Here are some tips to help:

• Buy what's on sale and skip what's not. This is a strategy called product substitution.
• Use non-traditional channels like warehouse clubs for buying food.
• Family Dollar and Dollar General are both putting in more refrigerated cases, along with some freezer cases, in many of their stores.
• Become more adept at using coupons by checking CouponMom.com and similar sites that will help you save when you shop.
• Shopping at Aldi can reduce your food costs by 40% over traditional supermarket prices without you having to do any couponing. Sure, you give up selection, service, the ability to use a credit card and the hours are limited at Aldi, but you will save big money.