national food

NATIONAL FOOD

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note: perfection!  I ran across the ideal nickname for Trump, finally.  "Forrest Trump".  How perfect is that?  I'm just glad Hilary didn't get in, so I have nothing against Trump per se.  I don't hate him, but don't like him either.  He is neutral, which is probably a very good thing.  But you need to smirk and chuckle on the way to the slaughterhouse.
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Five years back I wrote on a Rawles article giving the amount of food on hand until starvation at one to one and a half years.  Well, it wasn’t even really an article but more of a paragraph scoffing at the notion that we had anything more than at most six months.  But I didn’t go into all that many details.  One of the great things about only writing and not working for one of the worlds biggest moronic douchebags anymore, being semi-retired, is that my brain has time to relax and ponder and isn’t all clouded with stress and unmitigated dripping hatred.  Hell, I’m seeing eight hours sleep a night as the norm now, finally, after decompressing for a few months.  I used to be lucky to get six to seven.  I can even write now without coffee.  And I can take as long as I need to as I belabor a point.  No need to cram everything into a lunch hour for writing.  So let’s dissect yet another outrageous notion that our buddy put forth, back when he still actually contributed to his blog instead of just using it a rentier wealth scheme that has most likely seen a financial hit and has him panicking ( I’m not sure why, as he’s had since the mid 90’s to prep and the mortgage has to be paid off by now.  Unless he spend all his old profits on FLIR scopes ) about now.  I’m wild ass guessing about all this of course and could be wrong.  It is more supposition and conjecture.  Following the gut.

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Rawles said something to the effect that all of the food on hand would be used up in a year or a year and a half and whoever wasn’t already self sufficient by that time would then starve.  It was kind of a heads up as to how long you had to go to ground before you could safely emerge from hiding, how long a die-off would last.  Not that those were his words.  No one ever accused the man of being Mr. Doomer ( again, I don’t hate the man, just his teachings.  I have respect for what he did for himself, early in the game.  I just don’t respect what he did prior to that, or after ).  You have to fill in the blanks yourself.  I can’t remember any of his reasoning behind his figures, but let me present mine so that you can decide for yourself.  First off, we know there is more than three days worth of food out there.  That is just what is on the shelves due to Just In Time ( JIT ) Inventory.  But there isn’t a years worth out there either.  The reason I say that is that there is a global trade in food.  It is a world wide JIT.  Here is the classic example given.

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Some guy not quite right in the head ( hello!  Heard of Jaws? ) is out on the ocean fishing, gets his haul of junk fish ( a lot of the good stuff has been over fished ) and heads to port.  Because White Boys want too much in labor, the ingrates unwilling to work for a dime an hour for his benevolent corporate master who also wants to sell him a $100,000 mobile home to live in, the fish are quickly sent over to China where they are processed.  Well, by now it is probably sent to Vietnam or Myanmar since those ingrate Chinese bitches are agitating for sixty cents an hour-the Gott Damn nerve!-but it is some dank hole on the map of Asia, and then sent back to White Boy country where one of the 10%’ers ( the 1%’ers straw bosses ) who lives on fish, olive oil, organic veggies and tofu pays some ridiculous price for mercury, microscopic plastic and Fukishima radiation laden seafood to keep her ass tight and boyish for her rich husband who obviously has issues in the sack but what the heck, did we mention he was well off financially?

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It isn’t that we are eating imported food.  We eat domestic food that is grown with imported oil, which is no better, but the point is that our domestic food is sometimes in transit to this country, not residing therein.  So while you can assume that we are food self-sufficient ( not in the long term, due to oil ), you can’t assume it is available at all times.  Let’s take as our start of a one year supply, between harvests, that perhaps 5% is value added food being processed and shipped.  Another 5% is due to Mexico being our new California as far as produce is concerned ( the long term trend in California is moving towards luxury crops like nuts rather than commodity produce like lettuce or broccoli, due to the water issues ).  Produce and frozen luxury fish isn’t a huge part of the market, so I low balled here.  If you go into a grocery store, the produce there is most like no more than 5% of the purchases anyway.  Or at least the calories.

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Those tiny ass women ( hilariously labeled by Tom Wolfe in his fiction as “boys with boobs” by a long suffering hourglass figure older wife looking at her competition ) might survive on zero calorie vegetables and 100 calorie fish fillets, filling up her contracting belly with artificial sweetened water  guaranteed to kill off legions of lab rats in the valiant effort to appear as close to a German concentration camp victim as possible, but that is because of climate control and drugs.  Absent those, that kind of diet, vegetarian, does not work well for survival.  So we can discount vegetables as a calorie source , plus all those foods to be processed in transient and the few small amounts of actual imported food not yet in port.  So that accounts for ten percent of our yearly food supply as unavailable ( I also include in there our domestic foods such as wheat.  We have silos of grain but at the moment the bread factories and cereal factories [ look for a large cereal company such as Ralston Purena to have a processing facility near you.  They ship in rail cars of corn, rice and wheat, just a FYI ] have their contracts fulfilled and so the wheat is shipped over to Brazil or wherever.  In a months time, someone such as Argentina will ship over their wheat.  This way, global JIT, the food conglomerates don’t see inventory on shelves wasting profits.  You need to account for “our” wheat being on loan ), which I think is understating the amount.  By understating, I’m assuming the best case scenario. 

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So, right there, ten percent of our food, in loans, in processing transit and in the form of highly fragile produce is taken off our years total inventory ( we don’t have any long term grain storage in a strategic reserve anymore.  And if my pea brain is recalling a minion comment correctly, fallow farmland is no longer subsidized by the government anymore.  Really, it is a year to year budget, period ).  But that isn’t the fun part.  Now we can go visit the bulk of our calories, the restaurant industry.  Forty percent of meals are eaten outside the home ( this is the reason that I cast my net for knowledge far and wide, consuming non-traditional doomer sources for information.  I got that tidbit watching a consumer advocate documentary deriding McDonalds.  I was in the mood to hate them as I had just passed judgment upon them as my wildly anticipated treats of French fries delivered a disappointing altered product whose taste was befouled.  McDonald’s-hump you very much.  Screw up my fries?  You’re persona non grata, bitches.  Mule member masticating asswhores ).

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I don’t care where you go eat nowadays, other than niche rich people eateries, it is all processed foods in #10 cans or refrigerated or frozen foods ready for quick service.  All that prep work they pay a passel of illegal immigrants to perform has been shrunk down to a minimum with more foods ready to go rather than ready to process.  Taco Hell used to make their refried beans in store.  Now they come ready to heat in a big bag.  Even your sit down restaurants are similar.  They can’t just nuke a hamburger patty, they still throw the frozen one on the grill, but given twenty more years I’m sure they could add enough additives to fake a fresh cooking taste.  They open a bag of pre-cut salad with the carrots and cabbage already added.  They don’t have someone cutting up the ingredients individually anymore.  I’m not trying to make the point that eating out tastes like shopping in the grocery store frozen food isle-I’ve done that before.  I’ve complained of the huge increase in prices as food quality declines.  No, my point is that nearly 40% of our TOTAL food supply is in the refrigerator or freezer at a restaurant.  Add in the prior ten percent we talked about at the beginning and HALF of our food is perishable. 

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Let me repeat that.  HALF.  The percentage of food in this country that must be eaten within days of grid down, widespread riots, economic collapse shutting down trade, etcetera ( the #10 cans are a marginal food source, unless you fill up with a gallon of condiments at a time ).  We have food warehouses, true dat homeslice.  They also contain frozen foods.  What part of greedy profit pig dogs did you forget about corporations ( I’m certainly not saying it is only a factor of greed.  Sometimes it can be simple survival as too much competition and too much debt shaves your profit margins down to diddly.  That is just poor management, but I’ll excuse the industry wide trend by blaming it on everyone’s predecessor.  Greed does factor in of course.  Quarterly bonuses decrease performance long term )?  If they can surpass the metal can to save a few cents, substituting plastic that needs refrigeration for its content, they will.  Not to imply there isn’t dried or freeze dried, just to say the majority is not.

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Now, let’s go meander over to the home and grocery store.  I’m guessing at a casual glance that a good third of all foods are in the freezer.  If 40% of meals are eaten at artificial coloring and taste fake food outlets ( I don’t care if a chicken McNugget is all creamed beaks and toes, at least it is a chicken part [ parts is parts! ].  I object to all the sugar and cellulose and corn byproducts added to most of the stuff ), it stands to reason that those 40% of folks like the taste and are just as lazy when it comes to home food preparation.  These are the idiots who buy frozen waffles because it is SOOOO difficult to mix flour and water.  Plus, a good fifth of our meals are meat, which is frozen.  Let’s reduce the junk food at home to a mere 10% so as to keep that wild optimism bubbling, add the frozen meat that won’t be preserved, and come up with a total of a third.  A third of the 60% eaten at home meals is going to be frozen and must be consumed immediately.  We are up to 70% of the total food consumed being perishable.  I’m sorry, let me repeat that in case you were playing around with your FLIR scope and not paying attention.  70 Gott Dam %.  Now, how about all those calories that are in industrial form.  The corn syrup, the cow feed, the filler.  The big railcar loads of weird crap that goes into huge vats.  We won’t even count that, but I can’t image it is an inconsequential amount ( but, we don’t count it as it might be part of the other percentages ).

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Seventy percent.  Perishable.  Yearly harvests.  One year, minus seventy percent.  Give or take three months of non perishable food.  The first week will see binge eating of historical proportions.  Then, what?  All those factory animal meat warehouses are most likely right up there with frozen food.  You can let most of the herd die to fit the feed on hand, but I’d wager without electricity or daily deliveries of supplies you’ll just have a huge rotting charnel house on your hands.  To speak nothing of the specialty animals unable to survive elsewhere without antibiotics and such vet items.  You’ll only be able to save a minimal amount, and that supposes nobody comes to take them from you.  Given most of our chickens are in the South in factory farms, good luck having them survive in that overpopulated area.  But, again, just focus on the seventy percent.  Don’t even consider the warfare over the available supplies.  Just look at that three month supply of food on hand.  Not a year, or a year and a half.  Three months.  Yes, some regions face immediately warfare and food disappearances, and others have more.  Obviously you can’t predict how it all balances off in three months.  You could enter back into society from your hidey hole and face either total depopulation or warfare still waging.  Gas and ammo should in theory last that three months ( although, with gasoline, I find it hard to believe this.  It is a daily delivery item, not a yearly crop harvest ). 

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But isn’t it better to have a figure to work with calculating your base odds?  Sure, we have enough food to last until next harvest.  But you can’t assume that whole year is available.  Our electric grid, to factor in nothing of its fuel generation, is overloaded and antiquated.  It won’t stick around in an emergency.  And there goes most of our foods.  Three months food supply, for all practical purposes, six months on the outside.

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