Lalaine Basa would buy a kilo of onions to make spring rolls at her catering business north of Manila. She’s now changed her recipe to use half the amount because of soaring prices in the Philippines.

In the Moroccan capital Rabat, Fatima no longer buys onions and tomatoes because they are too expensive. She gets artichokes to cook tagine instead. "The market is on fire,” said the mother of three.

The experiences of the two women more than 12,000 kilometers apart shows how the global crisis over food supplies is taking an alarming twist: threatening to consume ingredients critical to the world’s nutrition.