In this very interesting February 22nd story over at WTOP radio in Washington DC, they report that the founder of an organic grocery store chain in the DC area, Virginia and parts of Pennsylvania called 'MOM's' (My Organic Market) had just conducted an experiment that interests us and should interest ANP readers with many ANP readers 'preppers': MOM's founder Scott Nash and his family lived for a year eating nothing but food that was well past its expiration date.
And the WTOP story holds a great message to us all in an America in which 30% to 40% of our food is thrown away regularly, leading to Americans discarding over $165 billion in food every year. With Nash and his family eating yogurt 180 days past its 'best by' date, hamburger meat 15 days past its 'eat by' date, roasted tomatoes 7 months past the 'sell date' and tortillas nearly a full year past the 'best buy' date, he also reports in his own blog that none of his family got sickened by eating the expired food while adding that expiration dates on food are random and not representative of freshness or threat, and they contribute to Americans wasting billions of dollars of perfectly good food every year.
Everyone can agree that food waste is bad. How bad? Decide for yourself. There is a lot of information online. This report from the NRDC is the most comprehensive I could find. It sums up the serious environmental consequences of wasted food: “When food is wasted, all of the resources used to produce, store, transport, and handle that food—including arable land, labor, energy, water, chemicals, and oil—are also wasted.”
(ANP: We have embedded the NRDC report in full via scribd at the very bottom of this story.)
And while certainly not all 'expired' food is still safe to eat and this WTOP story recommends everybody perform their own tests to make sure it's still edible, their story reports that in most cases, we'll be able to tell using our own senses.
The Food and Drug Administration, which agrees expiration dates lead to unnecessary food waste, does say any food that is obviously spoiled — abnormally soft, discolored, moldy or has a strong unpleasant smell — should be discarded, no matter how properly or how short a time it has been stored.
People do get ill from eating food that has gone bad, but your best judge is appearance, texture and smell, and in most cases, you’ll know.
Andrea Goergen, a registered dietitian and nutritionist at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, agrees.
“It is very important to make sure that you use your senses. If a product is technically good but looks, smells or tastes spoiled, err on the side of caution and throw it out or compost it,” she said.
Nash used common sense, a nose and his eyes and ate things, just based on their age, that most wouldn’t even consider.
Americans throwing away $165 billion in food every year aggravates the fact that many of America's farmers are now in big financial trouble according to John Newton, the chief economist of the American Farm Bureau Federation, who recently warned "the farm economy's in pretty tough shape" largely due to regulated prices, tariffs and the inability to export certain foods. The excerpt below comes to us from this recent story by Mac Slavo over at SHTFPlan titled "The US Faces A Catastrophic Food Supply Crisis In America As Farmers Struggle".
American farmers are battling several issues when it comes to producing our food. They are officially in crisis mode, just like the United States’ food supply.
“The farm economy’s in pretty tough shape,” said John Newton, chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation. “When you look out on the horizon of things to come, you start to see some cracks.”
Average farm income has fallen to near 15-year lows under president Donald Trump’s policies, and in some areas of the country, farm bankruptcies are soaring. And with slightly higher interest rates, many don’t see borrowing more money as an option
. “A lot of farmers are going to give the president the benefit of the doubt, and have to date. But the longer the trade war goes on, the more that dynamic changes,” said Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade, according to Politico.
Warning within his story of the potential of a catastrophic food crisis in America, it has long been warned that the only real difference between 'civilization' and 'total anarchy' is 9 meals. And if people know that a food crisis has arrived and no more food will be delivered to the stores, that 9 meals quickly shrinks down to 1; the next one.
Think that people won't be thinking about that food they threw away when there is no more to buy? Once again, from Slavo's story.:
As the government continues to pass the burden onto others while destroying the food industry, things could very well reach apocalyptic levels. Nothing will see this country spiral into complete disarray like a lack of food. Alarmingly, scientists have already said that the global food supply system is broken.
While at first I truly thought it was fake news until I heard it from the horse's mouth, in this February 22nd story also at SHTFPlan Slavo reports that socialist presidential contender Bernie Sanders once uttered the words: "People lining up for food is a good thing". If you don't believe it, you can hear it from 'the Bern' in the 2nd video below.
And as Slavo warns within his story, there is a real chance that Bernie could become US president with him only a Hillary Clinton 'steal' away from winning the Democratic party nomination in 2016 and having raised over $5 million within 24 hours of announcing his 2020 candidacy proving he does have great support amongst the Democrats who continue to move left.
"You know, it's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is when people are lining up for food. Well that's a good thing. In other countries people don't line up for food, the rich get the food and the poor starve to death."
Does anyone believe the kind of lines for food we've witnessed in Venezuela would be a 'good thing' for America? With Democrats moving even farther left in the 2018 election than they'd been in decades, America's socialist revolution is here. Yet with Venezuela showing us what socialism looks like in 2019, do anyone but millenials who obviously never passed their history classes really want it? If THIS is what socialism will bring to America, please go home, Bernie and take AOC with you.
So what can one do if they have leftover food that is no longer wanted that very moment but still good enough to eat? As Susan Duclos told me, her mother used to have a 'potluck pail' in which all the leftovers were thrown and frozen until one night towards the end of the month, a smorgasbord of leftovers was thrown into a stew. As Susan told me, that was always one of her favorite meals and it always had a different taste depending on what they had been eating over the weeks.
And while generally you'll find very little food wasted at our house as we love the versatility of tortillas for 'leftover night', using practically any kind of meat being made into quesadillas, burritos or chimichangas, we can always learn from the pioneers how to stretch out our food for as long as possible as Susan Duclos reported in this ANP story.
As she had mentioned, the pioneers were famous for their perpetual stew in which a hot kettle was continually restocked and kept hot with all kinds of different ingredients added in constantly, just as was done in medieval times. From Wikipedia.:
Also known as hunter's pot or hunter's stew, is a pot into which whatever one can find is placed and cooked. The pot is never or rarely emptied all the way, and ingredients and liquid are replenished as necessary. The concept is often a common element in descriptions of medieval inns. Foods prepared in a perpetual stew have been described as being flavorful due to the manner in which the foodstuffs blend together, in which the flavor may improve with age.
There’s a pioneer cooking tradition in the United States that stretched from cook camps on cattle drives to lumber camps. It’s “perpetual soup,” known in some regions as the Skillagalee kettle.
Back in 1910, Horace Kephart wrote an iconic book titled: The Book of Camping and Woodcraft: A Guidebook for Those who Travel in the Wilderness. He covered just about everything related to living and surviving in the wilderness back then, and had this to say about this type of food: “Into it go all the clean ends of game — heads, tails, wings, feet, giblets, large bones — also the leftovers of fish, flesh, and fowl, of any and all sorts of vegetables, rice or other cereals, macaroni, stale bread, everything edible except fat.”
The post, he said, is “always kept hot” and its “flavors are forever changing, but ever welcome.”
“It is always ready, day or night for the hungry, varlet who missed connections or who wants a bite between meals. No cook who values his peace of mind will fail to have skilly simmering at all hours.”
So with food waste a huge problem in America, a problem costing Americans billions of dollars a year, and with food shortages surely a thing of the future, we get more proof of just how fortunate we are here in America in the 1st video below, a heartbreaking video that shows us what people all around the world have to do to get food, many digging through garbage dumps to find their next meals.
And while in the 2nd video below we get to hear that food lines are a good thing from Bernie Sanders, the video is interweaved with news footage of food lines in Venezuela, proving Bernie has no idea what he's talking about.
The final video below by Canadian Prepper is titled "WARNING: The Coming Food Crisis | Be Ready 2019" within which our videographer asks "Are you ready for the collapse of the agricultural system?" In his video he goes over all of the factors that threaten the global food supply including: Consumerism, overpopulation, urbanization, pollution, biodiversity, monoculture, farming practices, water shortages, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, overfishing, geopolitics, bee extinction, monopoly (big agriculture), genetically modified food, global warming, soil erosion, land loss. drought, are just some of the many challenges to our way of life.
If there’s one thing we know about Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, it’s that he loves breadlines… and Communists.
While Sanders didn’t quite make it during the 2016 election – arguably because he was robbed of his nomination by the Clinton campaign – Americans who believe in Constitutional rule of law, liberty and everything that makes this country great better wake up, because Sanders raised over $5 million within 24 hours of announcing his candidacy, suggesting that a massive segment of the U.S. population is supportive of what he stands for.
Well, they may think they know what Sanders stands for… The problem, of course, is that hardcore leftists reside in an echo chamber which has, through harassment and violence, shielded itself from any ideas or arguments that sit outside their very close knit, media supported narratives.
For those of our readers who understands what this means for America, you might want to prepare yourself for breadlines and total impoverishment, because it’s coming should he or another one like him ever become President of the U.S.
Because when we talk about the threat of socialist and communism, what we mean when we talk about “bread lines” is what’s happening in Venezuela, where people are literally eating stray dogs and cats to survive.
As always, we open up the comment section to your prepping tips, ideas and suggestions. Thank You!
FEBRUARY/MARCH FUNDRAISER:Despite generous donations, the still dwindling advertising revenue over the course of the last two years has forced us to completely deplete all our savings just to survive and continue to keep All News PipeLine online.
During the months of February and March, ANP is running a fundraising drive. PLEASE HELP KEEP ANP ALIVE BY DONATING USING ONE OF THE FOLLOWING METHODS.
One time donations or monthly, via Paypal or Credit Card:
