This makes for some interesting - and worrying - reading:

[Woof]

Originally Posted by GloryB

.....If things get bad, and they may very well, then it would be best to invest in some good staple food....not fancy stuff you can live without.

Yes and no ..... basically you should store the things you know you like to eat, and some of it should be comfort food and food that requires little or no cooking. For example some chocolates will last quite a long time, make some people very happy in bad times, and provide a large amount of the most important nutrient in a famine - calories.

A limited amount of stored food can also be fresh veggies that are known to last a long time, such as the root vegetables or cabbage.

You can put aside some every time you go shopping, simply buy two or three times as much of the canned foods or ramen or nuts, some instant milk alongside your fresh milk, whatever you like. Maybe go to Costco and buy a 50lb bag of rice, it stays good forever and you can serve a lot of it as filler along with a small amount of canned foods.

Originally Posted by London Girl

......I live in the US now, not England so I won't be causing a jam crisis over there!!!!!!!! Nor here for that matter
.........

Perhaps not, but I have a feeling a feeling that there are soon going to be shortages of Earl Gray tea in your part of the country ....

[Icy Tea]

How about peanut butter? That packs alot of protein, keeps a long time and can be a quick meal or treat any time. Oh, yeah, that's right, the salmonella thing....

[London Girl]

Originally Posted by Icy Tea

How about peanut butter? That packs alot of protein, keeps a long time and can be a quick meal or treat any time. Oh, yeah, that's right, the salmonella thing....

I think the big jars of peanut butter are fine - just not peanut butter in snacks.

As far as imported durable goods go I think that we may start to find that as demand falls off (due to people cutting back, finding themselves in more financial difficulty from job losses etc) then shipments will get less and less frequent...............and prices will start to rise. As more businesses fail here in the US there will also be fewer places to actually buy these goods.

*I know that the BDI indicates the cost of shipping price point rather than shipping volumes (and deals with raw materials not manufactured goods) but found some of the comments here interesting: http://survivalacres.com/wordpress/?p=1595 (broken link) - primarily those comments from people who have noticed a big reduction in the volumes of freight cargo in their area. This cannot be a good sign of things to come...........I have read elsewhere of people noting the biggest gatherings of out of commission cargo ships they have ever seen moored up in places like Singapore. And of course, raw materials are used to make manufactured goods. Less demand = less goods available.

[Stac2007]

Originally Posted by jimmyP

Hi Stac2007,

I would think NYC must be getting hit pretty hard. I imagine a lot of those high paid Wall Streeters and bankers don't know how to live poor. Hard times everywhere.

Jim I am hearing stories about people selling their assets here in the suburbs of NYC to stay afloat. Women are even selling their jewelry. I guess living big over the years has put a strain on having to make month payments on those shiny BMWs they all drive fast up and down the Palisades Parkway. Their big McMansions here are also going on the block.

[Woof]

Originally Posted by Icy Tea

How about peanut butter? That packs alot of protein, keeps a long time and can be a quick meal or treat any time. Oh, yeah, that's right, the salmonella thing....

Excellent prep food, very high in calories also (which is a good thing if you have to ration food).

If you get the natural brands such as Adam's, or even grind it yourself at the healthfood store, you'd be unlikely to get salmonella. And if you did get salmonella (more likely from chicken), you'd probably just get the Hershey Trots for a few days.