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Food security and the coming storm

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Re: Food security and the coming storm

#221

Post by sdoering »

jefurii wrote: post #195
akira2501 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'll save money and eat better. Yes, of course, if you're willing to trade your time into these things, you can generally end up with an output that is less expensive. The question, as always, is the amount of time required worth the trade? > You'll save money and eat better. The amount of my diet that is bread is so small that this really has no measurable impact on my life, and certainly wouldn't be worth the p…

You're right, becoming an artisan chef takes too much time for the average person. I never managed a sourdough, but I was surprised how easy it is to make simple French bread. 5-10min to prep the dough, another 5min over the next couple hours to manage the rising and baking process. Adding a little water in a tray below the bread in the over gives it a nice crust. It's actually ridiculously easy. Naan-like flatbread…

I agree. Tonight I went outside into the greenhouses, took a knife and cut a few leaves of different salad varieties. Went back to the kitchen to let them water a bit in the sink to remove a bit of dirt, dust and a few insects.

Took three minutes.

While the leaves were in the water I quickly did a bit of work for a client that I put off over the weekend but wanted to finish before the week started. Went back to the kitchen afterwards.

Washed the salad again, dry tumbled it, cut a tomato, put two slices of bread into the toaster and prepared the dressing from joghurt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar all bought directly from the producer. Crumbled a bit of feta over the salad, put the dressing over it and a bit of salt and had a very fresh and extremely tasty meal within less than ten minutes.

This was extremely fast food, while still matching the slow food philosophy. And I enjoyed it tremendously.

I know that this is pure luxury. Not everybody has a garden to grow their own food. And not everybody has a SO that infected them with the bug for heirloom varieties of vegetables and salads. And I also know that gardening isn't for everybody. To me it is relaxation as contrast to staring at a screen the whole day.

My SO also bakes bread but we have a great organic local bakery that we get our daily regular bread from. Baking is more for fun.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#222

Post by ajsnigrutin »

Nasrudith wrote: post #219
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not just cows.. it's potatoes too... they pick up potatoes and have a warehouse full of them, you want to buy a sack (5, 10kg) from them, and they offer you a price, again, higher than aldi. And i'm talking about the same farmers who sell their produce to aldi and complain about how little money they get from aldi and how (relatively) high the price in aldi is.

I understand that a cow is a logistic process, where after slaughter, you have to get rid of the whole cow, not just the "best parts", but selling potatos is literally just packing a bag and weighing them, but nope...

Same with apples in the autumn, complain about low prices from companies, then not wanting to sell them at retail price (with two middlemen gone).

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#223

Post by Nasrudith »

phpisthebest wrote: post #50
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For all the "Baby formula shortage" media coverage, how many stories have included a recipe for alternatives to commercial formula? Mostly I've seen admonitions to not try making baby food at home, which is incredibly useless for people trying to feed kids. Thanks for pointing this out. It's like we've forgotten how to function as humans in some respect. Baby formula isn't some magical combination of ingredients. A…

>>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…

It isn't some vast conspiracy, it is that specialization by definition does it better. Literal cottage industry couldn't compete. That is what being able to buy better tools and outcomes gets you, industrialization. Memetically people are still pissed off about the change centuries later.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#224

Post by Nasrudith »

IncRnd wrote: post #48
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…

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".

Babies have also been dying for a very long time too. I would be wary of citing it. Some people also have damned good reasons not to breastfeed like medication or diseases that would spread via milk.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#225

Post by anm89 »

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…

The bigger players hedge all of this in the futures markets. I think this is an understated reason why smaller players struggle to compete in modern agriculture. Maybe a cool startup idea? Managing agricultural hedging for owner operators?

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#226

Post by Auracle »

guerrilla wrote: post #121
tomjen3 wrote: post #112

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.

They wouldn’t come if they knew they would be stopped. We can (and do) send aid when needed, even though our countries are under no obligation to do so.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#227

Post by phpisthebest »

Nasrudith wrote: post #223
phpisthebest wrote: post #50

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…

It isn't some vast conspiracy, it is that specialization by definition does it better. Literal cottage industry couldn't compete. That is what being able to buy better tools and outcomes gets you, industrialization. Memetically people are still pissed off about the change centuries later.

Specialization for sure is part of the equation, but I dont think it is the full picture. Also to get to a dependency problem one does not have to claim a vast conspiracy, often created as unintended consequence of well meaning government programs, or policy shifts that create incentives for corporations to act in a manner that the result is a dependency instead of self reliance.

In the context here specialization means people are not sustenance farming working 16 hours a day creating 100% of their food themselves, however the other extreme of this is total dependence of your food from outside of your region, and the ability to prep, cook, etc you food to others.

There is a balance there, where by a person may not grow all of their food, but has a garden (even in indoor garden) to grow some things... Or buys from local farms, and learns how to cook their own meals instead of total dependence on prepared meals either from the store (i.e tv dinners etc) or from restaurants / fast food...

I know a lot of people where more than 80% of their food intake is cooked prepared for them, and the 20% that is "from scratch" cooking is like bacon and eggs level cooking...

That is with out getting into direct dependency on government...

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#228

Post by sdoering »

fny wrote: post #134
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…

Before you all clamor over organics, I'm going to leave some evidence to ponder. The food shortages in Sri Lanka are primarily due to ditching industrial agriculture in favor of organic: https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/05/sri-lanka-organic-farmi... We depend on industrial food processes to create the yields necessary to support society. Organic food does NOT provide commensurate food security.

This isn't a counter point to organic agriculture but against idiotic policies.

Everybody who has even a passing knowledge of the subject knows that yields drop in the first few years. Especially when the necessary knowledge about local resistant varieties, supporting crops, natural ways to deal with pests were lost over the years.

Just reading the setup it was clear what would happen. It was like blindfolding a formula 1 driver and telling him to go full speed. The crash would not be a surprise. I would have been stunned had it worked.

Let me provide a more scientific counter point regarding yields comparing different types of agriculture [0].

[0]: https://rodaleinstitute.org/science/farming-systems-trial/

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#229

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

Nasrudith wrote: post #223
phpisthebest wrote: post #50

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…

It isn't some vast conspiracy, it is that specialization by definition does it better. Literal cottage industry couldn't compete. That is what being able to buy better tools and outcomes gets you, industrialization. Memetically people are still pissed off about the change centuries later.

Sure. Until the MBA-ification made sure everything runs as lean as possible… and then everyone wonders where supply chain issues are getting worse.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#230

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

0daystock wrote: post #11
h2odragon wrote: post #2

Another: https://jeffreycarter.substack.com/p/no-one-is-talking-about... Few seem to want to talk about this, they want to talk about how coming shortages will best be solved by giving them power or at the least listening to their advice. For all the "Baby formula shortage" media coverage, how many stories have included a recipe for alternatives to commercial formula? Mostly I've seen admonitions to not try making ba…

> 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…

It obvious possible to run diesel with out DEF.

And you “can” remove the def systems and cats.

But the real story is that all diesels on the road now use DEF/EGR systems and that isn’t going to change because of a shortage.

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