[ReverseEngineer]

While we are watching a lot of funny money go up in smoke and Malls hawking a lot of Chinese Products we don't really need foreclosed on, one portion of the economy still seems to be running, that would be the food production and distribution apparatus. Demand for food is relatively inelastic, people continue to buy it as long as they have some money. Its the last thing on your list you stop buying of course.

Given this fact, until we reach the point where more than say 50% of the people are unemployed, there still will be a market for food, albeit a smaller market. It would seem to me that the last thing to crash here in the cascade failure is the producer-distributor-consumer food chain.

In the original Great Depression, did food ever COMPLETELY disappear from markets? No, but of course many people went hungry because they didn't have money to buy the food. The issue of main import in the US is how you go about distributing food to people who do not have money? This of course gets resolved nowadays with Food Stamps.

I'm going to hazard the guess that what we will see over the next couple of years is a vast ramping up of the Food Stamp program. This amounts to a Goobermint Bailout of the food industry at the consumer end. The rest of the world of course doesn't get Food Stamps, they still have to buy our food with some money we will take, or with Barter. So we might send food to the Saudis as long as the Saudis send Oil back to us. We still need at least some clothing, so we might send some food to the Indians if they send some underwear back to us.

So far, despite the massive collapse in the paper wealth of the world, the basic food economy still seems to be running, although the poorest countries of the world are now facing starvation scenarios because they have nothing to trade that would get them enough dollars to buy food.

As long as TPTB get food to the masses here and some form of shelter, it probably will stave off a mass revolution for a while. The question would be, how long can the food economy be propped up through a Food Stamp program, and what will people do with their time without jobs? Will simply watching TV and surfing the net keep them busy enough not to riot from boredom?

This post is a result of the fact that I still see no sign that any food products which might be affected by the Global Shipping slowdown have disappeared from our grocery shelves. Still getting Rack of Lamb from Australia. Still getting Tomatoes and Avocados from Mexico. Still getting Cheese from France. All perishable items which had to be shipped here in the last month. So far, this sector of the economy is still running worldwide.

Reverse Engineer

[dinopello]

I went to a new Vietnamese restaurant in town last night. It was great! About 10 different kinds of Pho (soup). Brisket, Brisket and meatball, Brisket and tendon, Brisket and tendon and tripe, Browned Brisket, Browned Brisket and tendon, Browned Brisket and tendon and tripe. yummm good for the complexion.

Pho is Pharkin' Phantastic! The dark siders who rail against diversity are obviously not foodies. I need to cook more with the dark greens like Kale. I love turnips and turnip greens.

[ReverseEngineer]

I went to a new Vietnamese restaurant in town last night. It was great! About 10 different kinds of Pho (soup). Brisket, Brisket and meatball, Brisket and tendon, Brisket and tendon and tripe, Browned Brisket, Browned Brisket and tendon, Browned Brisket and tendon and tripe. yummm good for the complexion.

Pho is Pharkin' Phantastic! The dark siders who rail against diversity are obviously not foodies. I need to cook more with the dark greens like Kale. I love turnips and turnip greens.

Forget the Restaurants. I am currently consuming a REALLY JUICY Ribeye I just BBQed with a dry rub of Montreal Steak seasoning. On sale today for $5.99 lb. I BBQed a second one with it I will slice up for a couple of Steak Sandwiches to have at work this week.

Hopefully it lasts a while longer. The Moose Burgers are great, but I'll miss the good old fashioned Rib Eyes from my youth to today. Nothing like Beef on the Propane fired Grill. An American Tradition.

Reverse Engineer

[EnergyUnlimited]

It'll be the paleolithic vegan and raw-foods diet. I love my kale. And rutabaga. And tempeh. And tofu.

Paleolithic peoples certainly were not vegans.
If anything, they were carnivores and scavengers who was also eating some berries as supplement (as vitamin C "addiction" is demonstrating).
Grain products are not yet adapted well to human metabolism because these are consumed not more than 10000 years. That is only 400 generations.
These 400 generations is preceded by something like 50 000 generations of meat eaters.

[deMolay]

Nothing tops a Porterhouse or T-Bone well aged from a nice slightly fattened Highland Steer. With a nicely baked old potatoe. Some cucumber salad and a Lucky beer to wash it down.

[ReverseEngineer]

Nothing tops a Porterhouse or T-Bone well aged from a nice slightly fattened Highland Steer. With a nicely baked old potatoe. Some cucumber salad and a Lucky beer to wash it down.

My Steak Collection in the Deep Freezer (all vacuum sealed with my handy dandy Seal-a-Meal) has many Porterhouse and New York Strip Steaks along with the Ribeyes. Those are my two other favorite cuts for the BBQ. Every time there is some real bad newz (like almost every week), on the weekend I go out and buy any steaks I find on sale, or sometimes Rack of Lamb which I also love. It only comes in on occassion though, its not always available or on sale.

This has been my habit for near a year now, I had to buy a whole new freezer for this compulsion. In addition to the smoked salmon and the mooseburgers and caribou sausage, I am past the point I can work through this stuff in a reasonable fashion. Basically I wil have to eat about a pound of Steak every day through the summer to work my way through it, and I can't possibly do that without having a Heart Attack I think. I generally eat most one a week, usually I eat tomato salads I mix up and TV Dinners I microwave.

If the food DOESN'T disappear off the grocery shelves in the next year and I don't lose my job, next year I am going to have a whole lot of 2 year old frozen steaks. Not sure how good they will still be at that time, and boy it will KILL me to just dispose of them. Maybe I will try making Jerky out of them, I can't think what else to do.

Reverse Engineer

[dinopello]

Maybe I will try making Jerky out of them, I can't think what else to do.

You could probably make Pho But with that much meat it would probably last a decade even if you made Pho every day. That's kind of the point of Pho - it's a tasty, yet frugal way to get some protein (the beef parts) and your calories (noodles) along with some flavorful herbs and vegetables. Hey, a gigantic steak and a potato is great too though.