Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Food security and the coming storm

eurasiagroup.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 427 posts

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#101

Post by devchix »

pharmakom wrote: post #20
jillesvangurp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

>I think what I really want is a work canteen, but open to the public

I think what I want is an ordinary, a set meal at a local tavern "ordained" at a time and price. I think restaurants evolved to serve a variety of dishes, where the ordinary (sometimes a bed and board place) served only one meal, but different meals on different days. I'd buy a subscription to a canteen style Bouchon, one meal a day, 30 different meals in a month, community table, water or BYOB.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#102

Post by stevenjgarner »

codenesium wrote: post #74
gadflyinyoureye wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large issue is where do you put the brackish or super-salted water? Desalination is great as long as you have the waste impacts managed.

You pump it back out into the ocean.

Probably fine for small-scale use, but on a planetary scale increased salinity could dramatically influence marine biodiversity, not to mention climate from thermohaline circulation disruption [1]

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_currents/05...

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#103

Post by [deleted] »

eulers_secret wrote: post #78
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.

Just saw this earlier today: https://www.insider.com/tiktok-doctors-say-diy-formula-recip... Basically there are viral recipes going around, and this supports that formula in particular is something that we cannot trust the average person to diy. Infants are extremely vulnerable and have unusual dietary requirements. People will die due to this. EDIT: I see this is contentious. Check the reddit post and go argue with…

[deleted]

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#104

Post by DeathArrow »

This might mean new waves of immigration from Middle East and Africa to Europe.

The last ones caused some stirring. I expect a new wave will cause, too. So we can see some pressure from European governments for finding solutions to end the war.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#105

Post by h2odragon »

xyzzyz wrote: post #83
IncRnd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, babies have been eating for an extremely long time, far longer than boxes and bottles have been around and filled with the "only way to feed the babies".

In the old days, the alternative to store bought baby formula has not been a home-made one, it has rather been a wet nurse. At the time, people had more kids, so there were usually wet nurses available close by.

Goats milk

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#106

Post by atmartins »

pharmakom wrote: post #20
jillesvangurp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Here me out: this sounds like an excuse. If you really want to solve it you could. I did.

I use a wok to cook and it's faster than going to McDonalds. It's slower than a frozen meal but not by much. I don't aim for perfection, rather, most of my meals I try and make healthy. I still love bacon.

In less than 10 minutes you can chop celery, broccoli, tofu, chicken, etc. If it takes longer then solve that problem: better knife, cutting board always handy? Chop faster, fingertips aren't that important.

Turn the wok up to 10,000 degrees and put a little avocado oil in there, throw it all in and stir. Put some low sodium soy sauce and monkfruit sweetener (if you want no sugar, otherwise brown sugar) and a little cornstarch+water too thicken. Ginger, whatever.

Anyway, you can make tons of variants of this dish. Curry, yakisoba, subgum chow mein. Almost all will be 90% vegetables. Do some rice or noodles with them.

Then solve salads. They are fast, easy, and can be delicious if you chop stuff up small and put a lot of variety. Keep trying different things. Watch YouTube videos about it. If you are thinking "I don't like salads" shut up. That's another excuse, there are an infinite number of ways to combine and prepare veggies.

Explore and solve the problem just like a crappy little software app that needs to be built. You just have to want it and be willing to learn.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#107

Post by tomp »

DeathArrow wrote: post #104

This might mean new waves of immigration from Middle East and Africa to Europe. The last ones caused some stirring. I expect a new wave will cause, too. So we can see some pressure from European governments for finding solutions to end the war.

In the last wave, only one country (Hungary) handled the problem sensible (building a wall, encouraging locals having more kids). The rest of the governments mostly pretended the problem doesn't exist.

I expect this to change with any future waves. It's hard to be a trendsetter, but easy to be a follower.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#108

Post by thriftwy »

enraged_camel wrote: post #97
pphysch wrote: post #80

> Over the last three months, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shocked agricultural markets Did Washington's illegal invasions of Iraq, Libya, or Syria shock global energy and food markets, leading to global crises? No, because a large part of the global economy did not attempt to cut off USA from the global economy following those blatant violations of sovereignty. This real lede is buried deep in the article. The f…

>> Did Washington's illegal invasions of Iraq, Libya, or Syria shock global energy and food markets, leading to global crises? Not a good comparison in terms of food. Ukraine produces 6% of the world's wheat. Russia produces 17%. The former is unable to export its stockpiles due to the Black Sea blockade by the latter, and the latter is not going to be exporting what it produces because they recognize that they can u…

Russia and Ukraine got very little from being major food exporters. For Russia it meant that wheat profits are just a dent of oil&gas profits, and for Ukraine it meant perennial poverty and international aid seeking.

Both were getting scolded for slacking economically.

If both countries were to be compensated 'fairly' for the wheat, maybe there would be no war right now. Food prices may never 'recover' to those unsustainable levels.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#109

Post by tomp »

joenathanone wrote: post #70
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.

No, your comment is short-sighted. Ideally, you'd have a system that would massively over-produce food (and feed everybody and store some) so that localised disruptions / crop failures wouldn't bring the whole system down.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#110

Post by tomjen3 »

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…

>lots of low quality carbs with cheap fat and artificial flavorings and not a whole lot of nutritional value.

> So, low quality industrial food products getting more expensive isn't necessarily a bad thing. It might prompt people to spend their money more wisely

Everything is getting more expensive, so people will focus even more on buying cheap.

Post reply on HN