Food (etc) shortages: will they last?

The Quarantine Zone
42

Somebody – a whole lotta somebodys – is baking bread, or at least intending to. One of the few empty shelves when my fiancee and I went to the grocery yesterday in the suburbs of Chicago was the flour section. Almost no wheat flour left, though adequate amounts of non-wheat flour (corn, rice, arrowroot, teff, etc.). Meanwhile, the bakery section and pre-packaged bread aisle were well-stocked. So was almost everything else that wasn’t toilet paper or paper towels; there was even a modest selection of eggs and actual cow’s milk, unlike my last grocery run where the only milk left was non-dairy “milk” or goat’s milk.

How many Americans still bake? I know some do – my fiancee wanted wheat flour to bake something particular, not out of an amorphous need to fulfill a panic-buying list that was apparently written in 1955 when the Leave it to Beaver mom still baked from scratch. :stuck_out_tongue: But to the point where the wheat flour shelves are empty but the coffee and tea shelves (for instance, and naming things not grown on millions of acres of the continental US like wheat :smack:) are full?

43

I bake bread (and other things) regularly and know quite a few people who do. But even if I hadn’t before, I’d seriously consider it now just to reduce the number of trips to the grocery store.

44

This morning, local grocery was nearly fully stocked. Able to buy our preferred brand of paper towels, and (not usual brand) TP.

Bread, cereal, fresh produce, etc - all our preferred brands - all well stocked.

45

My high school aged daughter now stuck at home and her college aged brother who still can work have decided to use this time to see how many different pizzas they can make. They do self rising crust of course. After some desperation multi store trips to find yeast, I tried to convince her to just save some dough to use as a starter for the next batch. But what does dad know about cooking? Fortunately mom was raised in a household with daily homemade bread so she convinced her to at least give it a whirl.

46

I baked a loaf of bread Saturday. I have a bread machine; the bread ain’t pretty but it’s pretty much 1) dump ingredients 2) press button 3) eat

47

Things are starting to recover here…

Stuff that is out/limited

TP
paper goods
ramen/dried noodles
rice
pasta

Stuff that is thin but seems to be hanging on/recovering:

canned meats/veggies
canned soups/stews
milk
cookies/crackers
frozen dinners

stuff that seems just fine

service deli and in house bakery
fresh meats and veggies
ice cream
liquor

when I go to the stores I have noted that there ALWAYS seems to be clerks restocking alcohol products.

48

Good idea!

She did get some yeast though she said it was hard to find.

I like the 'Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day" thing - gotta find my cookbook though I think the basic instructions are available online. I was really into that for a while. Right now fridge space is at a premium (you make the dough and leave it in the fridge until you need it).

Flour is indeed hard to find as well.

We visited Costco today and they had limits on how much you could purchase of certain things. Most people we saw leaving the store had a large package of toilet paper - I suspect that was one of the “can only buy one” items. Chicken was another “one only” thing and their boneless chicken breasts were cleaned out; we got the last package and it was available only because one of the sections was half empty. They had parboiled rice, and some kind of sticky rice, and nothing else rice-wise. Other than that they seemed well stocked - though there were signs outside saying “no sanitizer / lysol wipes etc.”.

49

Aha - here’sthe basic 5 minutes a day recipe.

50

I gotta say, I’m impressed with the manner in which my local Publix grocery store is handling the Corona-situation. They are rationing the hardest hit frenzy-buy products properly and are adhering to a sensible sanitation protocol (wiping down cart handles with disinfectant, limiting hours to cleanse the store frequently, etc.). Their butchers, bakers and [del]candlestick makers [/del]seafood handlers replenish their hard-hit display counters as quickly as they can. They and all the rest of the Publix staff remain pleasant and accommodating, despite being over-worked and over-stressed. Cudos to all!

The shoppers, however…well, they’re just idiots.

I keep myself and my teen kid at home and only venture out to the grocery store when needed and to the cat rescue we volunteer at (because kitties need help, and they’re not idiots). We wear surgical masks when we do go out (only got 2 left from my retired doctor bag. We use, disinfect, dry and re-use). Sure, they don’t filter virus-size particles, but I figure they at least help limit the distance droplet-borne viruses travel, so, why not?

The last 2 times I went to Publix, my intent was to go in, shop quickly, keep my distance from everyone, say nice things to the staff and get out just as quickly. Assuming you and everyone around you is infected is a smart way to proceed for the time being. Just imagine you’re playing the old kid-game, “cooties.”

But, my fellow shoppers do not share the same idea. For some reason, I seem to be a magnet for idiots. I’m a tiny bit overweight (“tiny” is a relative measurement. Compared to a hippopotamus for example, I’m pretty tiny), but certainly not enough to create a gravity sink…but, who knows? Never have I been more sidled up to, bumped into and blocked as I’ve been in a store as I was this past week.

Idiots. Idiots all around.

On aisle 6 (the paper [del]and sex toy [/del] product aisle), Publix finally had a limited supply of TP and napkins on the shelves (1 each per person). So, I made my way half-way up the aisle and get blocked dead in my tracks by a woman on the TP side and a man on the napkin side with their respective carts longitudinally adjacent to each other, completely blocking the aisle (they didn’t know each other as far as I could tell. I was cart-blocked, not cock-blocked).

Rather than just scooping up what they needed then going on their merry way, they took this opportunity to pick up, one by one, each available brand of TP/napkin and inspect it thoroughly. It’s napkins and toilet paper people!; at your ages (~50, going on 3) you should know enough about these pedestrian consumer products to make a quick buying decision!

So, I laid back about 10 feet and just stood there, patiently, waiting to see just how clueless and inconsiderate these idiots could be.

They didn’t disappoint.

Then, another idiot who closed in quickly behind me (and could clearly see that I was waiting for the 2 idiots ahead of me to move their idiot-asses so I could progress) decided he wanted to be closer to the action. So, he scooted around me (rubbing his idiot-body on me in the process) and inserted himself directly in front of me, just behind the other 2 idiots. Not only was he an idiot, he smelled bad, too. Alas, surgical masks don’t filter out foul smells, either.

Then another idiot pulls up next to me and yet another idiot pulls up right behind me. And, all of these idiots looked like the type of people a deadly virus would like to infect (viruses love idiots). “Viri” and “idiots” both have 2 eyes. Coincidence? I think not.

Even in the best of times I get claustrophobic easily (paradoxically due to a nasty case of agoraphobia), so, being closed in by this rabid pack of pseudo-virus-spewing zombies was starting to feel real to me.

Then, the idiot behind me sneezed and everybody looked at him. But still, nobody budged.

Then, another idiot pulled up behind the idiot that was behind me.

But, that idiot stayed about 10 feet behind everyone else and after a few moments, he giggled. So, maybe he wasn’t an idiot after all. Maybe he was a compatriot that I could relate to. And, indeed he was.

I looked back and made eye contact with Mr. Giggles. He shrugged. I shrugged. Finally, I looked ahead again, threw my hands in the air and said, “really people?!? Are we all just going to stand here spreading our germs around willy nilly!”

They all looked at me, but no one moved. So, I turned my cart around and made my way in the opposite direction past the idiot behind me. The idiot who wasn’t an idiot behind him did the same and we pushed our carts aside each other onto the next aisle. I said, “can you believe those idiots?” He giggled again and said, “nope. Lots of idiots around.”

With my luck, I probably caught Coronavirus from Mr. Giggles and will soon die a horrible death. Hopefully there’s no idiots in heaven (…I assume that’s where I’m going. Right???).

51

I visited Costco yesterday early in the afternoon. There was a longish line of people waiting to go in (they were restricting the number of shoppers - good for them!) and there was a barricate of carts and pallets keeping the line organized. Mostly people were maintaining their distance in the line pretty well, which was why it looked so long.

There was a sign saying what they were out of (the usual - gloves, Lysol etc. - and of all things, Spam!). There were some things that you could only buy one of - like various chicken products, you could only get one of each type, ditto rice. They didn’t have much rice: some parboiled stuff and some sticky rice - and there was a sign saying neither was returnable). I didn’t look for toilet paper as we have plenty (though I admit I changed my Amazon subscription to monthly vs bimonthly) but they clearly had it, as I saw people leaving the store with it in their carts. I suspect that was a one-per-customer thing also.

They had plenty of produce of various sorts so I bought some. No green grapes, interestingly. Nor blackberries. I got what I thought we could eat in a week or so - I’ve become a bit of a dictator now on food waste at home.

They had canned tomato products - I got a gallon of tomato sauce to go with the gallon of whole tomatoes from the grocery store. Now what to do with them!!!

They had plenty of beef products in contrast to the chicken shortage (we got the last package of chicken breasts and only got that because it was “defective”, one of the 3 plastic sections only had a very small piece in it). Looking at the beef, I was seriously wondering if I should order another freezer - we have a main fridge in our kitchen, and a smaller standalone freezer in the basement, which is jammed at the moment. If things get much scarcer I might wish I’d done it.

Checking out was a breeze. I’ve never gotten out of the place so fast - a side benefit of their limiting the number of customers.

52

You were in Costco and didn’t grab the giant bottles of vodka to mix with your tomato products? Add enough vodka to liquify the tomato sauce in the blender.

53

LOL!! Nope - in my state, vodka is only sold at state-run ABC stores :frowning:

54

Here in Hawaii, it’s panic buying still. The islands get about 95% of products by sea in containers. Some jerk a couple of weeks ago started a rumor of port closures. Quickly debunked but not until hoarding fever infected the populace.

Folks gang up at the stores the day after the container ships unload. I just drive by with the lines around the Costco store. Ironically, will all the business and tourist closures, gas lines are non-existent.

I do monitor the household TP levels. We (two of us plus daughter and granddaughter here from Korea) are 13 full rolls beside what’s on the dispensers. Still far from DEFCON 1. :smiley:

55

Sure.
Assuming that there is a normal SUPPLY of the goods.

Of course, the panic buying started because people had reason to believe (right or wrong) that this supply was about to be disrupted.

56

Old doctor trick, after laundering repackage your mask in a small bag with a drop of eucalyptus [or whatever] essential oil. Beats the irritation of constant vicks under the nostrils. my moms doctor back in the 50s liked lavendar oil, apparently. the doc that I took gross anatomy from mentioned it when some of my fellow students complained about the smell of the autopsy room.

think upon it sort of like hte old plague doctor and the cone filled with herbs =)

57

I was at the supermarket a couple of days ago, and despite the fact that the country has been on lockdown, it seems to be fairly well stocked. There’s plenty of toilet paper and paper towels, albeit of a brand I’ve never seen before; I’m curious to hear the story behind that. There are some weird gaps on the shelves - plenty of regular all-purpose flour, but absolutely none of the “fancy” flours (bread flower, pizza flour etc.). I wonder why that is.

58

If yeast is scarce, this recipe is good:

59

Local supermarket is very low on paper goods, low on eggs and a little low on chicken. Generally well stocked now including kitty litter after being low stocked in a lot of areas last Friday.

We got yeast yesterday, a tough one last week. I think things are improving in the Supermarket supply chain as hoarders have done most of their hoarding and panic buyers feel they’re in better shape now.

60

I am hopeful that things may be improving, based on Peapod item availability.

We had a delivery last Saturday and at a LOT of items on our order were unavailable. I just rechecked… and 37 things did not arrive.

I had immediately started a new order: next slot was for 2 weeks away. As I looked for items, they were showing as “out of stock” - including things we had gotten this past time around.

But just this evening, I looked and several “out of stock” things were suddenly available for ordering again - boneless chicken, chocolate chips, pork tenderloins, green peppers, etc. On the other hand, some things I’d added before now show as out of stock - but the newly-available does seem to outweigh the newly-unavailable.

Of course it’s still up in the air as to whether we get everything we order, but this gives me some hope that things are normalizing.

Grocery delivery services are swamped, no surprise. I think we may have to play the game of checking a minute after midnight (or whatever time they typically open up a new day’s worth of slots) to nab one. For “fun” I looked at reserving spots with InstaCart (Costco) and Safeway and could not get a spot for either.

61

I just got a successful Instacart delivery today (northern California), with a two-day lead time on placing the order. Only one item out of stock (a specific salad mix), but a quite acceptable substitute was available. If I wanted to place another Instacart order right now, I could get a slot within two hours (which is a lot more normal for them) at FoodsCo. Smart & Final has a two-day lead time, no slots available at Costco as of when I type. Walmart delivery is also seriously backed up, no available slots for tomorrow (they don’t show further out than that).