Empty Shelves

Empty shelves. They have abounded across the world in recent weeks. Storms across the U.S. have wiped out supermarket supplies. Australia, Brazil and Sri Lanka have been hit with massive flooding, leaving cities cut off from suppliers and stores picked clean.

In Germany, shoppers have wiped out supplies of organic meat and eggs after news got out that

"a firm in the north of the country suspected of knowingly supplying animal feed manufacturers with fats intended only for industrial use.

They were then used to make as much as 150,000 tonnes of animal feed used across Germany.

Tests have found higher than permitted levels of dioxin, which can cause cancer, in eggs and in three chickens, according to the federal agriculture ministry.

And just as hopes were growing that the crisis had eased, with more than 4,000 farms reopened, it emerged on Tuesday the contamination had spread to pork, one of Germany's favourite dishes."

(Dioxin a cancer-causing agent - only one of many. This is not an isolated incident - this kind of food crisis has been happening constantly for years, in America and abroad. The news can break at any time without warning.)

America has one of the most unstable and unsustainable food supply systems in the world. (That's not hype - I can give you a reading list of documentation to confirm it.)

Even FEMA recommends that individuals be prepared to take care of themselves for at least 3 days following any emergency as it is extremely likely to take at least that long for government help to arrive.

At the risk of sounding like the DHS Certified Right Wing Extremist that I probably am, this is a wake up call - an air raid siren, screaming across headlines at every one of us to be prepared. Huge swathes of our population are frighteningly incapable of taking care of themselves in an emergency; please don't let yourself be counted among them!

Right now, there is food on the grocery store shelf and gas at the corner station. There is also a foot of snow on the ground and frigid wind battering the windows. Look around your house today - don't wait. Do you have what you need to survive at least three days, with no electricity and no outside help? Can you get to it? Does it have batteries, fuel or whatever else is required to function in the cold and the dark if you wake up tomorrow morning with no power?

We are not helpless. Despite the government's opinion, we are not "sheeple", to left ignorant and left bleating pitifully when the unexpected comes. Ordinary people make the difference in life and death situations. Our choices and decisions to pay attention and have a plan dramatically increase our chances in any emergency.

Make the choice. Have a plan. Be prepared.

(Shared on Monday Mania @ The Healthy Home Economist)