Peter Grant: Thoughts On Food Shortages And Food Storage

The United States has not seen widespread hunger or starvation since the Great Depression. As I've written about before (see, "The Real Reason for the 1934 National Firearms Act?") there was considerable social unrest in the United States in the early 1930s including food riots/hunger riots. I suspect that there were considerably more of these riots or protests at the time. For instance, the Library of Congress relates, without going into detail, that "[b]y 1932, hunger marches and small riots were common throughout the nation." Unfortunately, very little has made it into the history books, although I do not know if it is because these events were not widely reported at the time or if historians simply wanted to sweep it under the rug (similar to the curious absence of discussion of the Spanish Flu in literature and history books in the 1920s). 

    In any event, Peter Grant of the Bayou Renaissance Man blog, has been writing quiet a bit about food storage these past months, including a couple articles published earlier today (Jan. 3):

• "The food crisis is getting worse, but most of us can't see the forest for the trees."
• "Emergency food supplies: points to ponder."

    The first article is primarily on two topics: (i) That even if sales of food items is going up in terms of dollars (mostly due to inflation) the unit volume sold is actually decreasing--at least for certain food items. In other words, people are shifting their purchasing to "inferior goods" or simply buying less food. Grant gives an example from his locale of a butcher who has seen his sales volume decline. My guess is that a lot of those people are either purchasing cheaper cuts of meat and/or eating more pasta and potatoes. (ii) He discusses certain staple foods where there might be shortages: rice, olive oil, and potatoes and, therefore, push prices higher. 

    The second article has some advice on going through your food storage to get rid of items that may have spoiled or gone stale (or will soon do so), maintaining a balance of food items (i.e., not too much of one thing or too little of another), and the importance if spices, flavorings and condiments. 

    Be sure to read both.