Got Food?

[Grouse]

Good article on being prepared. I learned this basic stuff as a kid in the Boy Scouts. Maybe it's stuff like this that makes the government not like the Boy Scouts anymore. God forbid people learn not to depend on the government for every bit of their survival.

Food on Demand

It is simply a part of the human condition that when something is readily available and easy to obtain that you fail to appreciate its value. Let's talk about food for a moment. Up until the last few generations the daily quest for food was always on the forefront of people's minds. It still is in many parts of the world, but in our world, the good old US of A, it is simply taken for granted. That is until the day Burger King is closed and you can't get a Whopper on demand.

I know it's been done to death, but consider the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One day into the mass power outage in New Orleans and residents were staring into television cameras, telling the nation that their families were "starving". While I don't mean to be harsh, 24 hours without a Big Mac is not "starving". What was the solution? Loot the neighborhood Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Foot Locker. Not that it took a full twenty-four hours for the looting to begin. Heaven forbid you wait that long. I'm not picking on New Orleans. Similar scenes have played out in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Miami.

There are occupants of the United States who have become so removed from the actual source and production of their daily food that they simply take for granted that it will always be there and available on demand 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They have no understanding of how food is grown, harvested, or prepared and they certainly don't consider or worry themselves with how food is supplied.

Prepping or as my Grandparents called it "everyday life"

I find it somewhat amusing or odd that that modern "prepper" movement has, at its core, the encouragement of storing ample food supplies at home. That's not a negative or bad thing it's just strange to me that humans have to be taught to keep food at home.

I'm old enough to remember my mother and grandmothers stocking the pantry or fruit cellars. When I was a kid every house was built with a little room off the kitchen called a pantry. If you didn't have a pantry you had a fruit cellar. This area is where you stored an ample supply of dry goods and canned food.

Every spring my mother planted a garden and every summer and fall she would be in the kitchen with jars and lids canning food. No, we weren't self sufficient; we didn't live out in the middle of nowhere on an Amish farm. I grew up in Detroit. And yes, we went to the grocery store each week.

Having a garden, canning food, and storing bulk food in the pantry, was just something you did. It wasn't crazy or subversive or some weird doomsday scenario, it was just part of life. Our parents, grandparents, et al. simply understood that it was the responsibility of the father and mother to keep the larder stocked.

Sure there were lean times. There were days when we kids hoped my mom would run out of canned lima beans or the meal consisted of a strange combination of what was in the pantry that needed to be eaten before it went bad. However, I can't recall a single instance of my parents rioting because the McDonald's was closed.

I remember one Michigan winter in the 1970's when the blizzard was so severe we didn't go to school for a week. We didn't leave the house for a week except to go out and build snow forts. Yet somehow my parents fed us. No, the government didn't airlift food into Roseville, Michigan either.

Giving a Man a Fish

Whether by design or just an outgrowth of twisted policies and plans, far too many of the current occupants of the United States do not see their daily food supply as their responsibility. Slowly but surely, over generations, too many families have abdicated the daily quest for this most basic of human needs to a faceless government bureaucracy.

As a nation we saw unprecedented growth and prosperity after World War II. We grew more food than our nation could consume and soon were providing it to many other nations. Unlike our grandparents and great grandparents who lived through the Great Depression, modern generations came to expect that food in abundance was not only always available, but somehow a given. Food was not a consideration that needed to be worried about.

Citizens of the United States are compassionate and not wanting anyone to go without, we simply nodded our heads and moved on with our lives as the Federal Government took a greater and greater role in providing food for the masses through subsidies provided by our tax dollars.

Year after year, generation after generation, more people have come to expect that the food they require for daily living is simply manna from the sky. All they have to do is wake up each day and collect it. It has become a right, an absolute, something that is owed to you by your government and by default your neighbor.

The Problem with Compassion

The government food program is all well and good and life is fine until some event threatens the daily manna. A power outage, a storm, civil unrest or any occurrence that threatens the supply of free food sends the modern zombies into a panic.

Never having learned to maintain their own supplies or prepare for their own survival the zombies strike out wildly. The problem that you, the citizen, must contend with is that once cut off from their daily government manna the zombies will look to other sources to feed. Like locust that cannot be contained they will swarm over the landscape leaving utter destruction in their path.

I bore witness to the chaos and mass destruction inflicted upon the Greater New Orleans area during the disaster following Hurricane Katrina. I saw the burned out buildings and cars and destruction left in the wake of those cut off from 24 hour McDonalds and Taco Bell. Many of the good citizens who held out their hands to feed the needy instead had that hand bitten off.

The Solution?

What is the answer? That is for each and every citizen to decide for themselves. Step one is self-examination. If you woke up in the morning and all the stores were closed could you feed your family with what is in your home? Is your pantry bare? How many days could you live without a trip to the grocery store; three days, a week, two weeks? Do your kids understand how to grow, harvest and store food or do they too view it as manna to be collected from the ground?

A modern philosopher, GI Joe, once offered that knowing is half the battle. Knowing or, more appropriately, understanding that not every occupant of this nation had the forethought and conscience to provide for themselves and their minions; you must consider your own options for the safety and security of your family. The zombies are already here and walking amongst us and your brains are high on their menu.

Paul Markel 2012

[virgil]

Good article on being prepared. I learned this basic stuff as a kid in the Boy Scouts. Maybe it's stuff like this that makes the government not like the Boy Scouts anymore. God forbid people learn not to depend on the government for every bit of their survival.

The government dislikes the boy scouts?

My recollection is that Katrina left the people of New Orleans that this article references with their homes underwater. Not sure if a well stocked pantry would have helped.

I do agree that people in general are too far removed from the process of bringing food to the table.

[Lawdwaz]

I'm good for 24-48 hours then I'm in trouble. Backyard bunnies will be in trouble...................

[Fantail]

I think Paul Markel & Earl Pitts are related.

I remember something else from katrina; if you don't obey big brother gov., they will send armed men into your mothers home and drag her into the street. Two things I need from the gov., my yearly refund and keep the bridges up so I can get to camp.

[hunterman7956]

HA ha this is so true whenever weather forecasters predict snow you cannot get bread or milk as the stores sell out within hours of the forecast ...my freezer is stocked with pink slime free venison and fish caught by me ...and if electricty goes out and i need food i can grab a fishing rod and catch some fish ...there is no better feeling than not having to rely on others..

[Grouse]

Virgil, the BSA has been having trouble for years now with the government and special interests that oppose it's policies and practices. Too much to write in this thread, but here is a link that enumerates many of the issues. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_membership_controversies

Edited March 21, 2012 by Grouse

[virgil]

According to your link, the federal government has been overwhelmingly supportive of the BSA- it even describes Supreme Court rulings that defend the BSA's right to set it's own membership rules as any other private organization. It says that the BSA has faced a number of lawsuits as a result of their discriminatory policies and that these lawsuits have been brought mostly by organizations like the ACLU as well as by individuals. It seems that as a result of losing these lawsuits, the BSA has lost some of its' sponsorship by the gov't. From this link, it seems clear that the BSA's problems have come from many areas, but not at all from the federal government. Did you read your link?

[Elmo]

Great article but the point about looting is exagerrated not so much that it was all about food or lack there of but rather oppurtunistic hooligans. If it was only about food then only grocery stores are going to be looted but electronic stores, etc were also looted. Right after the hurricane hit, looters saw it as an oppurtunity to get whatever they want. They didn't think about food during the first 24 hours. It was until much later did they think about food.

[Grouse]

Virgil, I read it. Perhaps rather than "government", I should have said authoritarian Leftists, to be more precise. Since many of the groups pounding the BSA receive funding from the Federal Government, you say potato I say patato.

[virgil]

Right. Always better to use broad generalities in your accusations when short on facts.

[Grouse]

Fact: Courts have ruled against the BSA on many occasions when they were sued by special interests.

Fact: Courts are part of the Judicial Branch of the government.

Fact: Courts have found the law does not like what the BSA does.

Fact: The Law is the rule of the government.

Fact: Court decisions against the BSA regarding US Law indicate a dislike for the actions of the BSA.

It doesn't matter which elected official, or how many of them, say they like the BSA, Court rulings speak for themselves.

Obama's actions also speak for themselves:

http://townhall.com/columnists/chucknorris/2010/06/22/white_house_vs_boy_scouts/page/full/

A friend of the BSA would stand beside them against all comers, not cower in the closet saying they support them. When Political Correctness can be used by the courts to beat down the BSA, with no objection from the Justice Department, the government does not like the BSA.

Perhaps this subject, which was an ancillary comment regarding the original post about self sufficiency, has been beaten to death now. Your opinion is your right, arrived at by your interpretation of events. My opinion derives from a different conlclusion.

[Doc]

If you woke up in the morning and all the stores were closed could you feed your family with what is in your home? Is your pantry bare? How many days could you live without a trip to the grocery store; three days, a week, two weeks?

The best quote from the article was the questions asked at the end of it. I wonder how each of us would answer that. My wife is from the old-school and still puts up food every year from the garden and other sources. We do have a pantry, and it is stuffed with all kinds of things. She keeps the freezer filled.

So I guess my answer to the author's questions would be measured more in months than days or weeks. If we had to be very careful about consumption, I am confident that we could go at least a half a year without going to a store. Let's hope that we never have to put that to a test, but it is an interesting question.