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Food security and the coming storm

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Re: Food security and the coming storm

#61

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #44
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial formula kinda is a magical combination of ingredients, including a substantial number of supplements that aren’t gonna be available to home cooks. It’s better to substitute homemade than water down formula, no doubt, but you can understand why newspapers don’t want to publish a recipe knowing that it will send some number of babies to the doctor with an iron deficiency.

> Commercial formula kinda is a magical combination of ingredients, including a substantial number of supplements that aren’t gonna be available to home cooks. Do you have a citation for that? I see all these articles that just say "don't try it yourself, it's too hard", but I'd like to know which specific ingredients are impossible to obtain.

I wouldn't claim that the required supplements are literally not available on the commercial market, but the FDA requirements (https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfr...) include over a dozen nutrients to track, some within a relatively narrow safety range. It's not practical to expect that stressed, busy new parents are gonna buy all these supplements, much less break out their scales and carefully measure 2-7 micrograms of selenium per 100 kcal.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#62

Post by devchix »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #15
sdoering wrote: post #4

I recently had a conversation with an organic farmer. While he is able to pass on at least some of his increased costs for energy and fuel through direct sales and cooperatively organized distribution channels, his conventionally farmed colleagues have a bigger problem. They have long-term purchase contracts that fix the prices for milk, meat or vegetables. In the case of milk and meat in particular, production costs…

I'm less pessimistic. People in the US, and increasingly the rest of the world are on a diet that just isn't good for them: lots of low quality carbs with cheap fat and artificial flavorings and not a whole lot of nutritional value. Arguably, a large part of the population is eating way more than is good for them and not enough good quality food. And it's not just a money issue: it's a skill and knowledge issue. Peop…

> I bake my own bread

Hear hear! I bake once a week, sourdough is my white whale, I've never made a good one, the lean crusty breads need a good commercial oven to turn out a good crust. The home ovens (even with crazy modifications for steaming) don't do as well. Alas, if anything is most anti-adapted to time-saving automation it's cooking and baking. I can spend 8+ hrs a weekend (yes, that's right, 8+) for food prep or spend that on more technical endeavors. I think about that trade-off frequently. It's not the cost, it's because the alternative is terrible nutrition.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#63

Post by [deleted] »

starkd wrote: post #58
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that's fine, but how many babies need that kind of formula? And parents with babies that do need that kind of formula are probably well aware of that. If you Google "how to make homemade baby formula", basically every article is how experts strongly recommend against it. And there are articles like "Why following TikTok influencers' baby formula recipes is a terrible idea." No shit following TikTok baby formu…

A baby dying of starvation is probably much worse than the risk of giving it wrong formula. And have you ever heard a hungry baby crying? It's not something you can wait long for.

[deleted]

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#64

Post by kmbfjr »

eatonphil wrote: post #40
usrn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might be our most underrated president.

I don't think he was, at least based on what he actually did in life. He only barely beat Nixon in 1960, caused Cuban crisis through his own making by bad defense policy in the middle east, gridlocked congress. His people turned him into a legend after he was killed. LBJ did the real work in implementing the ideas JFK wanted (but couldn't implement). Yes JFK's death may have made some of this more possible but how mu…

Not to mention Joseph Kennedy was one greasy mo-fo.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#66

Post by eatonphil »

kmbfjr wrote: post #64
eatonphil wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he was, at least based on what he actually did in life. He only barely beat Nixon in 1960, caused Cuban crisis through his own making by bad defense policy in the middle east, gridlocked congress. His people turned him into a legend after he was killed. LBJ did the real work in implementing the ideas JFK wanted (but couldn't implement). Yes JFK's death may have made some of this more possible but how mu…

Not to mention Joseph Kennedy was one greasy mo-fo.

I mean LBJ was super corrupt. But he was effective.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#67

Post by h2odragon »

lotusmars wrote: post #17
ImHereToVote wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. Mariupol doesn't look that flattened to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1I8SZeXGFo

Plese don't spread Russian propaganda. Graham Philips worked a token "pro-Putin Westerner" on RT and Zvezda, which is literally Russian army's TV channel. He's as shilly as it gets.

All that's available form "official" sources is propaganda; might as well look at both sides. There's not likely to be any truth there, but one may have more hope of discerning truth by looking at things, than by refusing to do so.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#68

Post by guerrilla »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #61
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Commercial formula kinda is a magical combination of ingredients, including a substantial number of supplements that aren’t gonna be available to home cooks. Do you have a citation for that? I see all these articles that just say "don't try it yourself, it's too hard", but I'd like to know which specific ingredients are impossible to obtain.

I wouldn't claim that the required supplements are literally not available on the commercial market, but the FDA requirements ( https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfr... ) include over a dozen nutrients to track, some within a relatively narrow safety range. It's not practical to expect that stressed, busy new parents are gonna buy all these supplements, much less break out their scales and care…

It's surprising our species made it the first 8 million years without the FDA...

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#69

Post by devchix »

0daystock wrote: post #45
pharmakom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time for me is by far the limiting factor. Short of a personal chef (too expensive) all the quick options are unhealthy. Edit: Loads of people suggesting cooking - I know how to cook, I just don’t have the time or energy. It’s not just preparation time but also the planning aspect. Meal prep delivery services suggestions are interesting. I have tried a few and found them expensive and low quality. Open to trying more…

This is the real reason people have unhealthy habits, especially with food: it takes a lot of time to source, prepare, serve and clean up after a healthy home-meal made from scratch and made with care. For better or worse, past social norms dedicated an individual (usually the mother) to stay home and tend to these tasks, but now most households have the entire family working to make ends meet and in turn externalize…

> especially with food: it takes a lot of time to source, prepare, serve and clean up

Absolutely! You can't just buy a slab of chicken breast, it needs to be trimmed and put away until ready to be used. Hardest of all: planning, what to do with it, what else goes with it. Pointless to buy broccoli and kale if you don't know what makes it tastes good, and when the inspiration strikes you, there's an ugly head of broccoli you need to cut up, and a bunch of unwashed kale you need to trim. 80% of cooking is peeling, cutting, dicing, shredding, skimming, straining, pounding, deboning, deveining, and waiting. All unglamorous, time-consuming, boring, manual labor. You need to speed this up to gain efficiency. Technical and planning skills gets you probably 50% efficiency. Cooking food is labor intensive and it appears to me all attempts to commercially scale is failing.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#70

Post by joenathanone »

atq2119 wrote: post #24

This is why, in normal times, food waste is a good thing. It means there's some slack in the system for when times get worse. Not that that helps people in poorer countries, unfortunately.

Such a short sighted comment, no, it would be best to have an efficient system where excess food could either be stored or delivered to those with food insecurities.
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