What’s the shelf life for a large sack of rice anyway? Having a bag in reserve may not be a bad idea if it’s several years.

Dried rice seems to last almost forever. Certainly I’ve been able to make use of an eight pound bag for over a year.

I live in a small New Brunswick town. For the first time, while shopping for a few food items. I noticed two shoppers whose carts were loaded with several 20 lb bags of rice, several large bags of flour. large boxes of different kinds of pasta and several large jugs of cooking oil. I was thinking they must have been spooked by all the news stories on the global food shortage and riots. I hope this is not the shape of things to come. Hoarding like this can spread and spread fear.

As for me, I better start stockpiling.

Really, small town New Brunswick you say? Having started out from small town New Brunswick myself this interests me….. which small town?

Imagine that, I have relatives there…. the ‘net is a small place indeed ain’t it?

Little place along the [apparently now old] TCH named Waterville located part way between Hartland & Woodstock, so small you couldn’t even call it a town :-)

Regardless of how well we can store foods with our freezers and canning equipment and abundance of tupperware and ziplock bags, we need to resist the urge to buy and horde. The more we do, the more encouragement we provide for commodities speculators whose amoral profit-taking is helping fuel this worldwide catastrophe.

Note to self: “Buy as usual. Leave enough for the people who really need it.”

North Americans (especially, Canadians) spend a far smaller percentage of our total income on food than those poor bastards in hellholes like Haiti and Mauritania. We spend only about 11% of our income on food. They were spending up to 75% of their incomes on food. Now, the price of food has gone up by 50% to 100%. Those poor hungry dirt-eaters are being forced to pay 100%-150% of their total income on food. You don’t hafta be an economist to see how tough it is to spend 150% of your total income on food, alone. What about shelter? What about clothing? What about medicine?

FYI, in the 70’s, we spent 25% of our income on food. Between 1900-1940, we spent as much as 45% on food. Food is cheap for us now. We can afford to pay a lot more but the third world cannot.

We rich, well-fed Canadians can do a lot. We can quit eating so much meat. I’m not advocating an all-or-nothing choice. Most Canadian families eat meat as the main component of the evening meal. Many eat meat for breakfast and lunch, too.

Producing 1 kg of beef requires 8 kg of grain. The newly-arrived middle class in India and China are now in a position to emulate our North American diet. They’re buying meat for a few meals a week. If we give up meat for a few meals a week, we can help alleviate the grain shortage. No, it ain’t a 100% solution.

This food crisis is the result of several factors and only by addressing a combination of all those factors will we be able to prevent the starvation of millions and the civil disorder that is threatening to cause thousands of additional deaths. Cutting down on meat consumption is personal and easy. Except for the vegetarians among us, we can all make a minor adjustment to our diet and do a little bit. Every little bit helps.

We can also put pressure on our government to end their counterproductive support for biofuel development.

We can also look into our RRSP’s and mutual fund investments and uninvest in commodities. Unbridled speculation is helping drive prices to a point where millions face starvation. We don’t need to participate by allowing our mutfund managers to deliver us windfall profits on the empty stomachs of starving millions.

JB
(sorry about the longwinded comment. I could go on for another 1000 words.)

Now, now. Homophones have rights just like everyone else.

Thanks Candace for the shelf life description.