Food Shortages

As many doom and gloomers are arguing about the scarcity of food worldwide, we in the developed nations continue to over-consume both our planets resources and it's food supplies. We're feeling our pennies pinched by ever increasing prices at the grocery store for staples such as bread, flour, rice and we watch as the price of meat goes up accordingly (since the price of grains to raise animals goes up too).

But I want you to think about your total income for last year. Not what you reported on your taxes...what actually came into your house as income. Now figure out how much you spend on groceries in a year including snacks and eating out. Is it 10% of you income? 20%? 50%? On average in the developed nations it's under 15% and yet the country complaining the loudest in the US which spends a paltry 7% on food. I think this number is probably higher because of the food stamps program but I don't know how they came up with the results in the info I'll post in a moment. I do know that in our family it's about 25% on average but that will change as the kids grow up and leave home and as our income increases. Other large families are in the same boat as us, and we're not worse off simply because of good shopping habits and growing some of our own food. Once the farm is up and running again our food bills will be much less. Hooray!

Here's the information I'm referring to. It shows selected countries income to food dollars.

I know that cost of food isn't the whole story. These numbers don't take into account that maybe people in developed countries are spending 40% of their income on shelter as opposed to other countries where it's lower. What it DOES show though is the inequality of calories consumed. I'm guessing that the higher the number of calories, the higher the consumption of fat and sugar in junk foods. I wonder if we'll ever be able to strike a balance? Well...my diet continues. All I can do is my part.

I do believe that food shortages are something to prepare for. So today I'm planning my seed shopping for next years garden. I usually have a storage of seeds from one year to the next but since moving we're starting over again with many things. Seeds included. It's time to add them back into my food storage plans. I'll let you know what we're growing next year.