Fed official says he looks at the price of Stouffer's frozen lasagna to gauge inflation

• A Fed official has an interesting metric for gauging inflation: the price of frozen lasagna.
• Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari told CNN Stouffer's frozen lasagna has increased from $16 to around $21.
• Kashkari said it wasn't impossible to avoid an economic downturn while taming inflation, but expressed doubts.

A Fed official thinks he can tell inflation is still too high for interest-rate cuts using an unconventional metric: the price of frozen lasagna.

In an interview with CNN, Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said he pays attention to the price of groceries, particularly Stouffer's frozen lasagna.