According
to a stunning new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
nearly a third of all food produced in the United States gets
wasted. We are probably the most wasteful society in the
history of the planet, and we are also one of the most gluttonous.
More than 35 percent of all Americans are considered to be officially
“obese” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Unfortunately, this era of gluttony and taking food for granted will
soon be coming to an end. Thanks to crippling drought in key
growing areas and other extremely bizarre weather patterns, a massive
food crisis is beginning to emerge all over the planet. If you
don’t think that this is going to affect you, then you simply are
not paying attention. Approximately
half of all produce grown in the United States comes from
the state of California, and right now California is suffering
through the worst stretch of drought on record. Food prices are
going to start
soaring, and that is going to affect the household budget of
every family in America.
Needless
to say, a time is coming when Americans will not waste food so
recklessly. But for the moment, we still have a tremendous
amount of disrespect for the value of food. According to the
U.S. Department of Agriculture, we waste a staggering 133
billion pounds of
food each
year…
Nearly
a third of
the 430 billion pounds of food produced for Americans to eat is
wasted, a potential catastrophe for landfills and a wake-up call to
officials scrambling to feed the hungry, according to a stunning new
report from the Department of Agriculture.
The just-issued report revealed that in 2010,
31 percent, or 133 billion pounds, of food produced for Americans to
eat was wasted, either molded or improperly cooked, suffered “natural
shrinkage” due to moisture loss, or because people became
disinterested in what they purchased.
Not
that we need to stuff any more food into our mouths. As I
mentioned above, we have an epidemic of obesity in this nation.
In fact, the CDC says that 35
percent of the entire population is “obese”…
Meanwhile,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more
than one-third of US adults (35.7
percent)
are obese, which is perhaps the best argument that Americans can
offset a large part of the food waste problem by simply eating less.
The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the US was $147
billion in 2008; the costs of providing medical assistance for
individuals who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of normal
weight, thereby placing an enormous strain on healthcare costs.
Since we are such gluttons and we are so
incredibly wasteful, we should have plenty of food to share with
those in need, right?
Unfortunately, we are also extremely greedy and
greatly lacking in compassion.
As
I have written about previously, feeding the homeless has
been banned in cities all over the nation, and other cities
have passed regulations that
greatly discourage the feeding of the homeless…
Feeding the
homeless is about to get harder as a new policy is set to begin this
Saturday, Feb. 15, in Columbia, SC. Charities and non-profits will be
requiredto
pay a fee and obtain a permit 15 days in advance in
order to feed the homeless in parks.
One impacted charity that was interviewed by
the Free Times, Food Not Bombs, has been serving food to the homeless
in Finlay Park every Sunday for 12 years. The group’s organizer,
Judith Turnipseed, noted that the group has an impeccable track
record and always tidies up after the meal. But with the new
crackdown, Food Not Bombs will have to pay at least $120 per week for
the right to feed the homeless.
Since the Columbia City Council approved its
exile plan in August, the city has been trying to herd its homeless
people to a shelter on the outskirts of town and keep them away from
downtown. If charities continue to provide food in downtown parks,
the thinking goes, it will allow homeless people to continue to live
downtown, rather than being forced to leave.
What is wrong with us?
While we stuff our faces with more french fries
and chicken wings, we have an appalling lack of compassion for those
that are not able to take care of themselves.
Perhaps we deserve what is coming.
The horrible drought that never seems to end is
rapidly turning much of the western half of the country into a barren
wasteland.
You
can see some incredible before and after photos of the drought in
California right
here.
The
water level in Folsom Lake has dropped 80
percent in just two years. In 2011, the lake was at 97
percent of capacity. Now it is just at 17 percent of capacity
and it is still dropping.
If
a miracle does not happen, the upcoming growing season is going to be
absolutely disastrous. As I have written about previously,
California farmers have already decided to allow half a million acres
of farmland to sit idle this year because of the extremely dry
conditions.
And
it certainly does not help that the government has decided to cut off
water supplies to many of the farmers. The following is an
excerpt from a recent article by
Holly Deyo…
Government
has lost its mind. It is no more evident than their decision last
week to cut off water to America’s food basket. Squeezed by the
worst-ever drought in the state’s history, California is dying of
thirst. Crushing news was delivered to farmer’s that no
water would
be coming from the Federal government. This dreaded decision was
compounded by the Sierra Mountains getting just
25% of normal snowpack.
There is no water to replenish already dangerously low reservoirs, so
no water for farmers.
Needless
to say, there are a lot of farmers that are going to be absolutely
crippled by this. The following is from Fox
News…
A federal agency’s recent announcement that
the California’s Central Valley will get zero percent water
allocation this year was devastating for farmers already dealing with
the worst drought seen in decades.
One of the
world’s most productive agricultural regions, the enormous valley
is reeling after the
driest year in more than a century.
But last week, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation,
which supplies water to a third of the irrigated farmland in
California through a 500-mile network of canals and tunnel, said it
won’t be able to deliver any
of the water sought
by farmers.
“It
goes beyond
devastation,
you’re going to see farms that have been in
business 30 and 40 years,
they do not have any water, they are out of business,” said Dennis
Falaschi, general manager of the Panoche Water District.
If
California produces much less food than it normally does, that means
that food prices are going to start skyrocketing. Here is more
from Holly Deyo…
As one
Millennium-Ark reader pointed out in an email last week, after
the jump
in beef prices, people will look to chicken, pork, fish and
turkey. Chicken
is already up though not as much as beef. This will,
in turn, drive up their costs and affect availability of these other
meats. Keep in mind that California also produces all of these
proteins plus lamb.
Then consider this: Ag
Specialists Warn of Higher Wheat Prices Due to Drought. It’s
not just beef, weather is clobbering food from all angles.
And
please keep in mind that the total size of the U.S. cattle herd has
already been shrinking for seven years in a row, and that it is now
the smallest that it has been since
1951.
But back in 1951, the size of the U.S.
population was less than half of what it is today.
For
much more on the emerging food crisis, please see this
video.
Let us certainly hope and pray that the drought
in California ends soon and that things get back to normal.
But I wouldn’t count on that.
According
to National
Geographic, the scientific experts that have studied these things
tell us that it has been quite common throughout history for that
region of North America to suffer through extended droughts that last
for a decade or more.
One
drought even lasted for about 200
years.
So the current drought in California might end
next year.
Or it might last for the rest of our lifetimes.
We simply do not know.
But what does seem clear is that the days of
taking our food for granted will soon be coming to an end.
No comments:
Post a Comment