In normal times at my house 90% of dinners feature “sale meat.”
Yes, between the local grocery store and the meat market I pride myself on stocking-up on beef, chicken, pork, steak and even fish when things go on sale. With two refrigerators I can go crazy on $5.00 pork tenderloins.
Alas, the other morning I found myself paying retail price for a pack of chicken from a bird which obviously starved to death.
Among the countless issues related to COVID 19, now comes a meat shortage.
” At least 79 food-processing and meatpacking plants have reported cases of covid-19 as of Monday, with many plants closing temporarily because of illness and absenteeism and to do deep cleaning and retrofitting to accommodate social distancing and proper protective gear.” — The Washington Post
During my last food foraging adventure I noticed huge gaps on the pasta sauce shelves, emptiness in frozen pizzas cases, limited milk options and a limit of two tubes of biscuits per shopper. Meat shortages seemed inevitable. And, as food gets harder to find, the number of sale items and unadvertised specials dwindle too.
My wife and I can survive on our stock of meat items for about a month. The variety may suck (a lot of ground beef but just one pack of chicken in the freezer) but we do have many meals of protein…and coupons for Impossible Whoppers.
Unfortunately, many families have a lot of empty in their freezers. Struggling families can’t afford to stock-up when prices are good. And, now an incredible number of families are struggling.
(Back in time: Years ago I stopped by the grocers after a too long evening meeting. The young woman ahead of me, still in her restaurant’s uniform, bought breakfast foods – a pack of Eggos, a box of cereal and a gallon of milk. She paid for it with one dollar bills and change. I think she had 35¢ left in her wallet.)
Here’s the good news: food stamp benefits have been boosted, from Missouri’s traditional $1.30 per person per meal to around $1.90. That will help better than 750,000 Missourians put more food on the table.
Now the bad: even the supercharged benefit levels fall short of what USDA claims a good shopper ought to spend on food. And, with food in short supply and prices high, those food stamps won’t purchases as much in May as they would have in January.
News reports on local TV show a lot of special food giveaways at churches and community organizations. That’s good. Yet, over the two or three years it will take to get clear of the virus’ impact, it will be the established food pantries which day in/day out do the heavy lifting.
Traditionally, most every food stamp recipient also requires pantry food to survive. That means pantries need a lot more food for a long time to respond to our new reality.
And, even with more food going to pantries more families will struggle to keep food on the table. The harsh reality is that hunger is becoming more common.
We all need to be more generous than ever…Today, tomorrow, next week, next month and next year.
[USDA Low-Cost food plan for March 2020: $2.14 per person per meal, based on February and March food costs https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/media/file/CostofFoodMar2020.pdf ]
Masks In The Mail
The other week I wrote about my attempt to buy disposable face masks from Newegg.
Amazingly, on April 24, the day after I wrote of my order delay, I was notified that my order was now being ‘processed and shipped.’
In today’s mail I received a box of 50 masks. Most of the writing on the box is in Chinese but, hey, they look decent. It took just 25 days for my “3 to 5 business day” order.
Glenn