There is no sincerer love than the love of good food. George Bernard Shaw
Food. It’s a love story.
But it is a love we take it for granted.
Like any love that is taken for granted, it will eventually fade away.
We go the supermarket, we see the aisles packed with exotic foods like mango, figs, pears and sweet potatoes and assume that the world is full of food. Well, in some ways it is, but the whole food system, if you look carefully “under the hood”, starts more and more to look like a house of cards waiting to fall. So today, in “What are you doing?”, let’s chat about food.
But before we begin you may wonder why I have a picture of a baby making a mess all over himself as he eats. Well, I just back from visiting my grandson who eats just like that. In fact, he is messier. He makes a mess and then throws food onto the floor and walls and anybody who happens to be close by – which usually is my daughter. For me it is also a metaphor for our food supply – we are making a mess of it by having an industrial/mining type of agricultural system which is in no way sustainable – so yes, like the baby, we are making a mess.
What spurred me to write about food today was the following headline:
Potassium depletion in soil threatens global crop yields
Of course, this headline alone would not be enough to make me excited, but it comes on the back of other articles I have read recently, both the serious and humorous [because laughing allows more hope than crying] versions:
Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
When you connect the dots, make it obvious that we have a severe risk of not only a large increase in food prices but also famine in some regions. But I am not encouraging panic, because in some way we are simply returning to normal, pre-industrial times when food could not be taken for granted. I mention this historical context to make it clear that the sky is not falling, but we should not take food for granted. Here’s a little example of what I mean courtesy of my deceased Czech grandfather. When he was young, that is, pre WWI and pre fertilizers, a poor person was thin, and a rich person was overweight. It was simply a matter of calories – the rich person could afford more calories and had to do less hard physical labour. Now, of course, things have reversed, but it does not take away from the fact that how we eat, and our resultant weight tells us a lot about both the society we live in and also our social place within that society. Of course, my grandfather lived in a small village with farmers all around, as was the norm in most of the world, and food came mostly from local sources. There was not supermarket. There was not global supply chain. There were no tangerines from Morocco and mangos from Brazil. There was no risk of the trucks delivering food finding the warehouse of food empty with the result that the supermarkets in the city running out of food after 9 meals [that’s 3 days] with the resultant chaos and anarchy a certainty when people panic from having no food. No, food was boring – potatoes and onions and turnips and apples – and it was hard to grow – but the system, being small, was more stable.
Today we are subject to the vagaries of the international marketplace. For example, did you know that only 50 years ago 80% of fruits and vegetables in Canada were grown in Canada [i.e. Ontario] but now 80% come from the USA [i.e. California]. Did you know that the central valley of California, the main supplier of many fruits and vegetables in North America, has mostly drained its ground water supply needed for irrigation? Did you know that this same central valley has a very high risk of being completely flooded, as it was in 1862 [this happens like clockwork around every few years – so it is not weird, it is normal]? This is only one example of a wonderfully efficient food system that has made our eating much more interesting and affordable – all good things – but, like everything is life, there is a downside: the risk of this complex system collapsing, albeit temporarily, because without a stable food supply chaos and social breakdown is sure to follow.
Sacramento Flood 1862
So, what can you do? We all know the answers – it’s really just about not taking food for granted. Grow a Victory Garden. Have a cold storage. Store rice and beans in special oxygen depleted vacuum sealed bags. Have a week supply of fresh water in large glass bottles. Have vacuum sealed dinners like campers do that can last for more than a decade. Be ready to share what you have. Cook everything from scratch. Help your kids and neighbours do the same. It’s not rocket science. Take control of your food supply, at least as much as is reasonable without becoming a fanatical prepper, and you will then feel better because this is something you can do, and it is an act that will make you feel empowered. This is, to me, the most important part of this chat about food: it is something you can act upon and reduce your feeling of being helpless. Helplessness in the face of Climate Collapse and Ecosystem destruction and the poisoning of our water, soil and air is a common response which, although understandable, only ensures that we fear the most WILL happen.
Do we have a food crisis? Yes! It just hasn’t happened yet, but if I was a betting man, if I played Poker better than I do, I would bet on food shortages making the headlines. Not in 100 years. Not in 50 years. Perhaps within 10 years – although, to tell the truth, putting a timeline on this sort of thing is impossible – all I can say, it is not a theoretical possibility, this is real. The bottom line is this: you and I are not helpless pawns. There are steps we can take to reduce the harm we are doing to Mother Earth, and the best place and most practical place to start, is ensuring you have food on your table for the next weeks or months to come. As you do this, make sure to enjoy the flavour of your food, make sure you share it with others, make sure you appreciate your food and thus enjoy life, because life is a gift to savour, and one good way to do that is enjoy good food with good people.
p.s. I have purposely kept this essay “light and fluffy”. For those of you want some serious “meat” I hope these thoughts help you get serious about food.
- survivalist garden: https://collapsesurvivalsite.com/permaculture-garden/
- read this: The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It by Julian Cribb [2010]
- TIME magazine, Jan.2023 There May Not Be Enough Food For Everyone in 2023
I think we will struggle with having enough food in the future. We may not have enough food for everybody in 2023. There’s no doubt we can produce enough food for the world’s population; humanity’s strategic enough to achieve that. The question is whether—because of war and conflict and corruption and destabilization—we do. Look, 200 years ago, there were 1.1 billion people on planet earth, and 95% of them lived in extreme poverty. Today, less than 10% are in extreme poverty. But in the last five years, we’re absolutely going backwards—and it’s not just a little bit, either. That should frighten the hell out of anybody.
- David Beasley, the head of the World Food Programme
- https://time.com/6246278/david-beasley-global-hunger-interview/
I could go on and on… but I don’t want to depress anybody. A key take away from all this is simple: this is something where you can be part of solution. We are not victims – we have a choice. Just make food security a priority for you and life will go on and you can even ENJOY life – now, there’s a gift worth sharing!
References
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-potassium-depletion-soil-threatens-global.html
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