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Food security and the coming storm

eurasiagroup.net

211–220 of 427 posts

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are rumors of diesel shortages and urea shortages. In order to operate a diesel engine on the road you have to use DEF fluid which is urea. This isn't strictly true, you can remove the DEF emissions control system from most trucks for a small price and this even yields a small performance gain. In my state, this is quite common as there is no emissions testing. The emphasis on diesel/DEF shortages is greatly…

You can do a "DEF delete," but if you are caught you will be paying some major fines for EPA violations that will quickly exceed the value of the truck. Do the DOT inspections at weigh stations not check for this? I know that older trucks are grandfathered as they never had it; generally vehicles are required to have all the original emissions controls intact. You also will need to know how to reflash the engine comp…

I think the point is that if there's a urea shortage, good governments would waive the DEF requirement until it ends, rather than effectively saying "sorry, it's illegal for you to drive that truck at any price".

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should be no problem: stop them at the border.

Which would kill them and cause massive suffering, so... no? I don't understand how people can be both this cruel and want to propagate such a norm: What happens when it's your turn to starve outside the gate? This kind of rhetoric is _not_ in your self-interest. Nobody is immune to the potential to need to migrate.

[deleted]

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#213
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're cooking well, almost everything is clean by the time you put food on a plate. If you immediately put leftovers away, the cleaning can be 100% done by the time you start eating

It's best to let hot foods cool a little bit before moving them to the refrigerator. They can be so hot that they'll warm up surrounding items, or in the freezer, you might end up actually thawing anything adjacent.

That really only matters if you’re putting quite a bit of food in the fridge/freezer. Think a large pot of stew. It’s more guidance for restaurants than people at home.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#214

Doesn't seem to factor in that cheap solar will make desalination much cheaper, but an interesting article for sure.

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.

Sea salt prices are about to be negative one dollar per pound

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#215

LOL. The article says that to fix the issue we need some international efforts and blah blah blah. Bullshit. All we need is to sink down russian ships in Black sea. Even better will be to help with the liberation of both Kherson and Crimea regions. Zaporizhzhya and Donbas can be liberated later, but Bastion rockets in Crimea endanger ports in Odesa and Yuzhne. This is the easiest way to provide food to emerging marke…

> All we need is to sink down russian ships in Black sea. Yeah, I'm sure nuclear war will be good for food pirces.

There’s also submarines

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lived for a couple weeks in Nicaragua and we hired the sister of the guy who maintained the property to cook for us (an optional service we were quick to agree to). On the first day she cooked a big batch of black beans in a pot. She left the pot on the stove, and would briefly bring to a boil each morning and night, which eliminated the need for refrigeration. With each successive day she’d throw in a few things…

very much so. i used to cook a couple times a week. big expensive protein. fancy sauces, a bottle of wine, and a nice salad. strangely, my gall bladder needed to be removed. while I was waiting for the surgery - it was brown rice and vegetables and maybe a little chicken. now its just brown rice (takes 30 minutes on an induction plate, edible for 48 hours), kimchi, and a little bit of this and that (tinned fish, frie…

I think I am misunderstanding something, how did you cut your cooking/cleaning up time down to 4 minutes a day? And, are you eating the same food every day now?

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#217
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 find two things funny... it might be a local thing (i'm from slovenia) but yeah... 1) gas was ~1.5eur here, then it fell to 1.0eur during the plague, and there were zero price drops beacause of that, and when the price started rising to 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 eur, everybody (farmers, retailers) started complaining about increasing gas prices and how that will result in higher consumer prices (even before we hit the price a…

Farmers expect you to pay extra for the inconvenience, in addition to already cutting out the middle-men. Same thing everywhere I've been in more developed countries across North America and Asia. Even Bali.

The most charitable interpretation is that farmers are simply not as optimized as grocery stores, resulting in a higher overall cost.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#218

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.

This writeup on Reddit has a decent breakdown of the pitfalls: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/uvcijm/a_pediatri...

Looks like osmolality is a major concern. Good luck explaining that in a 30 second clip on CNN.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#219
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 find two things funny... it might be a local thing (i'm from slovenia) but yeah... 1) gas was ~1.5eur here, then it fell to 1.0eur during the plague, and there were zero price drops beacause of that, and when the price started rising to 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 eur, everybody (farmers, retailers) started complaining about increasing gas prices and how that will result in higher consumer prices (even before we hit the price a…

Economies of scale strike again it seems, for #2. Cows are big. 20 kilograms is practically nothing and the efficency is low at very small scales. Consumers often operate under the delusion that cost is fixed per item in all locations, at all levels of demand and any increased prices are pure opportunism.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>It's like we've forgotten how to function as humans in some respect. It is not that we have forgotten, the social and governmental structures have been for a long time pushing for dependence upon corporations / government and less self reliance. Self Reliance is something that is to be socially mocked, "survivalist", "prepper", etc are seen as derogatory terms. Even community level reliance has systemically been re…

I would mainly blame capitalism and globalization. It’s very hard to stick to your principles when you can get everything for a 10th of the price/effort from Walmart. It’s also completely impossible to be self reliant in any mid sized or bigger metro area because you just don’t have enough land to produce food and energy.

globalism sure... capitalism... that would require a more nuance explanation of what you mean by "capitalism" since that is huge subject often misused by people that do no understand that all ownership of private capital and means of production is "capitalism" under which there can be good and bad effects.

So blaming "capitalism" for anything likely means the person is ignorant on the topic of economics, or is speaking about one type of capitalism (say corporatism, or crony capitalism)

capitalism as an economic system is a foundation for liberty, one can not have a free society with out capitalism in some form.

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