Preppers: The Problem With Out-of-Season Food
Kevin Felts 11.28.18
One thing nice about our modern food supply chain is that developed nations have access to a wide range of food even when they are locally “out of season.” For example, a few days ago, my wife and I visited a local grocery store that had peaches in stock. Looking at the label, the peaches had been imported from South America.
The reader may be asking, “Why is this a problem?”
The problem is not in the food per se. The issue is people being spoiled to having access to various foods which are out of season when locally grown. Let’s go back to the peaches: When grown locally they are only available for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months throughout the year.
Going back to the dawn of humanity, people have eaten various fruits and veggies when they were grown locally. When means they were seasonal. When wild plums were ripe, the harvest was over. Wild persimmon trees drop their fruit over the course of a couple of months. When the plums and wild persimmons were gone, there were no more. This kept people in tune with the seasons.
There was once a time when people were in tune with the seasons. Every year I am reminded of something my dad told me years ago. He said, “When pecan trees bloom winter is over.” Not bloom as in flowers, but when their leaves start to bloom. Certain trees blooms earlier than others. For example, the crab apple will bloom before the pecan.
Someone may seen the crab apple bloom, think winter is over and plant their garden, Then, a couple of days later a freeze comes through and the young sprouts are killed. Thus setting their garden back a few weeks. If that same person had waited until the pecan trees sprouted, their chance of frost would have been greatly reduced.
Such is the balance of nature. Frost-resistant trees bloom first, with the least frost resistant blooming last. People today do not have to pay attention to such details, as their food is cheaply and readily available year round.
There was once a time when people would harvest the bounty, then preserve what they had harvested. Here in Southeast Texas the wild plums are typically ready to harvest in the early summer. People would fill buckets full of wild plums, then make them into jelly. If someone missed the wild plum harvest, they were out of luck. Typically, families did not want sell their preserved food because that was all they had to eat for the rest of the year.
So what is the problem with out of season food?
- It disconnects us from nature.
- Spoils society to having cheap and readily available food.
What happens when society gets spoiled to having easy and cheap food? There are YouTube videos of people calling the police when a fast food place runs out of a certain type of food. If people are going to call the police when a fast food establishment runs out, what will happen when there is no food?
