Food Rationing Hitting US Stores?

Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.

This really does seem to be "unthinkable" in the US. IF there is a shortage in the US, prices will jump dramatically. This will price out the poor into already stretched food lines.

With gas inching upward, cost inflation on everything and now food shortages. This will prove to be a deep recession. The banks are still suffering making mortages harder to get. A realtor friend says even 6 figure incomes are being rejected making the housing market a long-term problem.

There are no shortages yet in my area (Southern CA), but prices have sure jumped across the board. As for controlling population through food shortages, this is not likely. As for a World War, not likely. There were only 50 million deaths in WWII. Even 10 time that would be a drop in the bucket. If it became nuclear, than all life would be in jeopardy.

I beleive a pandemic will be the blow to human kind that will do the substantial damage.

reply to post by centurion1211


Actually she never said that.

reply to post by roadgravel


Exactly...

Many stores, my own included, order just enough to fill the shelf, and occaisionally we misjudge it...and it could very well look like a shortage, when in fact it's a screw up on our part.

Well, still no sign of it where I live. Food is not anymore expensive too me than it was 5 years ago. Though I admit I dont buy much weat or rice in bulk. lol.....Mostly steaks, veggies, and fiji water.......and coors light. I dont eat bread and I friggin hate rice.

This is just a guess;
Trucking (supply) companies may be restructuring routes due to the cost of fuel, which could lead to a reduced supply of products in geographical locations. If this is the case there could be potentially severe miscalculations in supplies due to blending routes.

Again, just a guess.

4-21-2008
I went to a Walmart Neighborhood Grocery Store about two hours ago, and everything was freshly stocked, no apparent shortages.

Corn Meal: 2.32 5lbs.
Cooking Oils ranged from 2.62-4.12 for 48 oz.
Wheat: sorry, all I found was wheat flour, 5 lb, 2.72
Flour:1.68 for store brand to 2.68 for Pillsbury, 5lb.
Rice-320 OZs-9.48(there were 4 bags, but lots of smaller sizes).
Eggs-1.78 large.(no small size to choose from!)
Milk 3.82 Gallon
Beans-pinto-2lbs-1.94

This is on a Monday, so I will try to check in Wed and Friday to compare.

reply to post by hotbakedtater


Fair warning, be prepared for someone to break out the "Walmart is part of the globalist agenda...." card and discredit your observed prices since they are apparently quite reasonable. Those prices seem to be pretty much in line with what it costs around here, just add about 20% to everything and you've got what we're paying.

[edit on 21-4-2008 by burdman30ott6]

Im not shocked,man these food shortages are all part of the plan to begin using population control measures against the entire popluation of the world.First they drive the enconomy into the ground along with several flase flag ops,then here comes the bread lines.

I think a lot of us have been talking about this in other threads for a few months now and there were a lot of people who told people like us that we were full of it that we were conspiracy theorists and that America would never have this issue....well I dont see those people yapping now. Im going to go on a limb and say this is going to get much worse before it gets better. Loam I like the growing plant Im assuming that is a pic of your new garden youve been wanting to plant? Ive started mine and my wife and I have been stocking on a lot of non perishables....

Fuel prices are making it hard on truckers, maybe the shortages were due to a problem with shippers.

I think it's too bad that this is happening. I really like the optimism that some have here but I stopped buying that feel good theory a long time ago.

I invested heavily last pay day in a lot of food for my family. I have been doing about $100.00 per pay check for a while now but my wife "gave me" $600.00 out of my last pay check to stock up on things.

I will continue to do this for the foreseeable future. It seems like everything is sky rocketing. I guess it comes down to what information do you trust? I don't trust most of it so I do my own analysis and I am scared.

If I am wrong the local food bank will be happy. If I am right I am at the point of needing a trailer to haul all of this. Or I need to make some more friends that think like me around here....

City life has some major downsides...

Edit to add:
Has anyone done a hanging garden? I was thinking about giving that a try this year for tomatos and other stuff...

[edit on 01/01/2008 by Perplexed]

I haven't seen any shortages in the stores, I have however been stocking up on food supplies over the past 5 to 6 months, buying a bit more than usual on each shopping trip, especially at the wholesale clubs. I'll be going to BJ's tomorrow and will update if I see any signs on limits for purchasing rice or flour.

Btw as for the garden, you can grow just about anything in a container. I've been picking tomatoes, jalapenos, bell peppers, collard greens and lettuce,okra and barbados cherries constantly for the past month and I only started my container garden two months ago. The key to constant food production is planting at intervals so that as one plant is reaching maturity another is getting started with production. I have cucumbers that should be ready to harvest in another week or two. Also having fresh herbs is great. The difference in flavor is amazing, but you can also dry and save your excess for future use and still have good quality dried herbs.

[edit on 4-21-2008 by worldwatcher]

Well a shortage of bees wont do us any good either.

This is just an observation on my part:

Here, when we get a bad snow forcast, folks flock to store and buy all the bread, milk and eggs (plus other stuff) they can thinking they are going to get snowed in. I mean, they even buy the Pillsbury stuff if the actual loaves of bread are gone. In 20 years, the worst snow we had was an ice storm that knocked out power for at least a week in some areas. The milk and eggs had to be put outside to keep them from spoiling, but, within a day, most roads were open and so were the stores (their own generators or power had been restored). The instant flock to the store prior to the storm was not required. Since then it still happens but again, within a day, most roads are open and travel continues around town. People just freak out and get scared to quickly.

And to my point, that is also what happens and is what is happening now. We hear of shortages and we flock to the store not only to buy 1 but several to "stock up". Panic, real or falsely created, is a powerful tool of control.

Oddly enough one of the things that could allievate this is to get rid of feed lots feeding cattle corn... they can't bloody digest corn, it just makes them fat and it makes them sick. Let them eat what they are supposed to.... grasses. It will free up tons and tons of corn.

my wholesale prices on olive, safflower, canola and coconut oil have gone up by an average of 25-50% in the last year, I used to buy these in 15 gallon quantity but lately it is actually cheaper for me to buy locally from sams and walmart for locally available product. I am considering buying a drum of olive oil as it is my staple ingredient and has a very long shelf life. The problem is finding room for a drum in my tiny workspace!

Milk here for store brand 2% is nearing $4.00 gallon. A 5 lb bag of basmati rice, which there was only one of was over 6 dollars, for rice!! granted its basmati but still that is nearly double what it was when i bought a bag a month and a half ago.

The only grain that seems to be staying steady in price is oatmeal, which is a highly healthy grain and makes lovely flour to mix with regular white flour without the meatiness of normal wheat or whole grain flour.
It is actually cheaper for me to buy in the bulk bins at wild oats than normal white flour in the bag. Plus that way i can mix and match my grains and flour to get a bit more nutrition out of the food.

They are considering a jump in price for elementary school lunches from 1.70 to 2.25 that is a HUGE price increase per day.
Wed is payday for us and i am planning on spending nearly half of this paycheck on food alone in order to have some back up of bulk items and staples before the prices climb any higher, Even though i really dislike them i believe beans are in order since they store well and are nutritious but seriously i dont like them at all

Really and truly I havent bought rice for awhile, but here in NC the price of cooking oil has doubled. I actually bought a big container of it 3 days ago and paid $8.49 for what use to be $4.99 2 months ago. The smaller cooking oils were over $3.50 each and were only $1.99 last month. So yeah the prices are going up. As for rice I already had 7 boxes of uncle Ben's that I bought just before Christmas this past year.

I will most likely buy a bag of rice tomorrow though just in case. I know it will only be a matter of time before the rest of the prices start shooting up or we start seeing more rationing.

I also have noticed that the prices of canned vegetables has doubled. I think its time for more of us to start growing some veggies.

There is an alternative to flour though and so far it hasnt gone up much. Its a Mexican corn flour called Maseca. I buy it and make tortillas and Tamales all the time with it. Its still around $1.50 for a 5 pound bag. Tomorrow I will buy about 3 bags just in case. With it having been made with corn I am sure the price will be going up soon.

Our news station had it on about food rationing that is when I did a major inventory of what we did have. Its only a matter of time before we see more shortages so we better stock up while its cheap and before they start a new ration on something we will need.

Hilda

reply to post by loam

For a real conspiratorial view, how about a purposeful manipulation of the markets to achieve some other end?

My conspiratorial view is that others (with money and means) are realizing that they need to do the same thing as those of us on a shoestring budget who must gradually stock pile our resources. For them it is calculate how much and buy enough.

I have noticed this before when buying powdered whole milk online. The last time (I think it was Spring 2007) when I made a purchase I was limited to two and it was posted as such. Other dry good items were not available by the pound but, were available in "chef" size. I do not think these rules apply to commercial business but, rather to individual purchases.

I had bought what I thought was enough rice at a food warehouse and the next year I looked to check the price for the "quick rice" to cover other emergency bases and it was not available. Also, the large bags of beans was not there. I would need to shop there more often to determine if this is ongoing.

Another merchant that sells freezed dried goods also had posted a notice saying not to wait until the last minute because they may not be able to fulfill the order.

This may just be the thing Americans have been waiting for, but could not figure out when. This Food Rationing and Shortage is a man made plot to raise Prices and to hand over the Crop Sales exclusively to the cunning Stock Brokers, who know how to exploit any given situation. It may be time, to get hold of the Farmers equipments, roll up the Sleeves and start working the Earth for food, Back to Basics.....the Old Fashioned Way, but without being obligated to these cunning stock brokers, who work for the Money Lenders.

Originally posted by grover
I don't know about food rationing but I have started fattening up my neighbors dog just in case.

$1.99 a pound for Zucchini!!! Usually ya can't give that stuff away. Thank goddess I garden.

Hecks yeah! I had tomatoes in January this last year and am growing
potatoes this year.

I have noticed microbeers are 9-10 a six pack.
Organic Coffee is 11.49 up from 9.99 a pound.
I'm on an infaltion diet now.

Was this what was talked about in that secret session in congress?

[edit on 4/21/08 by stikkinikki]