Monday, April 28, 2008

stockpiling

Rice.
Rice is the center of our diet.

Don't blame it on the Liberians.
When I was 14ish, I moved in with my brother and his family. My SIL is Samoan and so we ate rice with every meal. Breakfast: rice with sugar. Lunch: leftover rice with random leftover topping from last nights dinner. Dinner: rice with random meat/vegetable on top. This is where my love for rice stems from.

Yesterday we went for our bi-monthly trip to Costco where we drop an amazing amount of money on lame things like tuna fish and toothpaste. Went down the rice aisle. No rice. Not a surprise since Costco moves their junk around constantly. So me and another confused customer found an employee and proceeded to ask them where they hid the rice this time.

No rice.
Huh? No rice?
No rice. We've been selling out about 1/2 an hour after we receive a shipment.
Well, then... when's your next shipment?
Dunno. I've heard either Monday or Tuesday.
What time do you open?
10am.

I had heard that organizations like World Vision were only going to be able to feed 2/3 of the people that they normally do because of a rice shortage, which of course means that a considerable amount of people will be dying of, and/or fending off, starvation. One point five million people, to be exact. With zeros, it looks like 1,500,000 people. That's 3 times the number of the entire population of Seattle.

Curious as to who is having such a major drought that might cause this world shortage, I perused the internet. First I saw that Australia wasn't aiming it's small water reserves towards rice, rather towards grapes. More money it them, apparently. But then I saw that there isn't actually a rice shortage!?!

So people are going to die and because...??





*update: we went to safeway this afternoon and scored the LAST bag of rice in the whole store.

6 comments:

Aly Cat 121 said...

There's actually MORE rice, however it's a commodity thing and an artificial shortage is being created. (or something like that). My hubby is trying to explain it to me as I'm typing. If stores like Cost-Co, Wal-Mart etc pay the true cost for the product and not the "slave labored" price, folks would still have rice to through at weddings.

But of course don't listen to my azz, see what info you can find.

Danielle said...

I am still confused about the rice thing...

I did hear about it, but it hasn't really "hit" us yet.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it's hit Iowa. It's still cheaper to eat rice than say....avocados.....but it's not super cheap like it used to be. Even my brown rice in the 50 lb. bags isn't the deal it once was. Brad's kinda happy though, he is a potato man....

Love, Jenny

Anonymous said...

I was shocked when I read about Sam's Club and Costco rationing rice purchases...imagine that happening in America!!? And then that same week I read about how the water reserves are disappearing...what an eye-opener!

Anonymous said...

I too published a post on this issue but it doesn't seem as if many people are concerned or taking it seriously.

http://defendingcontending.com/2008/04/22/the-coming-food-shortage/

- The Pilgrim
of www.DefendingContending.com

Erica said...

Hey you have any good way of cleaning up the rice after dinner? That is becoming a really big pain!

How have you been? You know how to make Grumpy Soup?

Miss you, Erica