Normally, we make a Costco run once a month where we purchase the bulk of our fresh foods, especially fruits, vegetables, dairy, some meat, and frozen foods, like frozen fruit for our morning smoothies. We also buy shelf-stable snack foods for our son’s lunches and whatnot. Of course, I also try to sneak in assorted canned goods, bags of rice, honey, and the like whenever my wife isn’t looking. 🙂 We then visit the grocery store once a week for all the other oddball stuff we might use, like ingredients for whatever’s on the menu the coming week.
Now, we haven’t been to the grocery store (or Costco) in a quite some time because my wife was out of town for a while, and then we were supposed to go last week but we were tired and chose to come home instead. This week, however, I started to notice just how out of food we were, at least of the food we usually consume. I’m down to making our morning smoothies with only apples and oranges now, which is about half of what I usually include. I haven’t made yogurt, which we also use in our smoothies, because we haven’t purchased milk in a while. We’ve also been making vegetable smoothies for the past few months, but those have been sparse of late because they take about a dozen different vegetables, most of which I’m out of and, as you might suspect, the garden hasn’t produced anything yet.
I say all that to suggest, as the title points out, we purchase far more food from the grocery store or Costco on a regular basis than I fully realized…and that’s super scary to me. Sure, we’ve got plenty of food storage foods, including a variety of canned foods as well as plenty of bulk foods (some of which we use regularly) but the truth is that we don’t use much of that stuff these days. And, although we have a greenhouse which provides some greens, most of that has gone to seed already and the rest of it looks like a jungle of leaves. Besides, most of what we’re growing right now isn’t what I need for our veggie smoothies!
So, here I am wondering how exactly our diets might change if we couldn’t get to the grocery store for a long period of time or, perhaps even worse, food prices skyrocket. Look, I’m not saying we would starve; I’ve got that covered. But there is something to say for precisely how our meals and expectations would change…and I’m afraid they will change drastically.
I’m afraid that most of the food we currently consume, especially fruits, vegetables, dairy, and meat, will be considered luxuries in the near future. I’m afraid that most Americans will be stuck eating a subsistence diet largely based on grains, and maybe even bugs. Yuk! I’m also afraid that, even though I believe I do my best to stockpile foods by purchasing in bulk and even freeze-drying, I don’t have nearly enough of what’s important. And I find that entirely ironic since I’ve written a book on the topic of food storage, lol.
I’m now thinking I need to revisit my own advice. It’s not that I believe my advice is wrong, far from it, but that I’ve lost my focus at some point. That is, I need to continue to stockpile the foods that are most nutritious for my family while I still can. Yes, that means purchasing more canned goods, but it also means planting more fruit trees, expanding the garden, and quite possibly learning to raise dairy cows and/or goats.
In essence, I need to continue to be more self-sufficient as much as possible. I need to get back to how our ancestors lived whether I truly want to or not. Because, let’s face, it: the party that is the luxurious American lifestyle won’t last forever, and when it comes crashing down, somebody is going to be left holding the bag, and I don’t want that to be me. I don’t want it to be you either. Please continue to prep like your life depends on it because nobody else is going to prepare for you, and they certainly won’t feed you if you have nothing to offer besides an outstretched hand looking for something to eat.
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