While I agree with you about the necessity, I don't think people are really doing much to actually solve a potential problem either. If we really get to the point that bakeries and supermarkets are out of bread and other reasonably convenient staples, you having bought flour in a moment of panic is of little comfort. There's more to the equation, and generally I feel that if people weren't comfortably ready for this 2 years ago, they won't be remotely ready in 2 days.
So let's say things have collapsed to the point that all the bakeries or supply chains leading to you are now out of commission. It's time to bake bread and you have flour. Do you have yeast and other ingredients already? They're already in shortages too. Is your water service and electricity / gas still working? Do you have experience baking bread, or access to a recipe book, or is your Internet service provider still operating? Okay - let's say the bread supply has collapsed completely and all of these things are still working out for you - great - you can bake some bread! But honestly, even that's pretty lucky. You might be eating cold gruel with water from the creek, if you even know that's a thing.
But wait! There's more! All the supply chains near you have just collapsed. Everyone's going hungry once they've gone through their 2 (or 0) bags of flour. Is your house about to be looted? Can you secure it? Are the phones and police dispatch still working? Do you have anything else to eat with your week's supply of bread? Are you even emotionally prepared for what life is like now if things are getting this bad and you just now decided to have some extra flour on hand? Wait - is that a fever and non-productive cough you're starting to feel? What are you wiping your ass with!?
If all you have in mind is last-minute hoarding of a few staples, you're contributing to a wider short-term problem and your staples won't keep you sane and healthy very long. If you're bored in quarantine, now's a good time to start planning to be more prepared and self-sufficient for the next event.
There's a point in between things blowing over and civilization collapsing. It's the point where most people will survive (if uncomfortably), but some people will starve. Perhaps because of a larger (but localized) shortage, perhaps because they'll get priced out. Some people, but not enough to cause the entire society to self-destruct. You want to make sure you and your loved ones don't become a part of this group, if it's avoidable.
You don't need yeast. You can bake things with flour and baking powder. In fact, with bananas, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar, and butter you can have banana bread that's just fine.
Yeast is far, far easier to keep around than bananas though. Honestly, I'm not trying to be mean, but if we are talking supply-chain shortages, bananas are the worst suggestion. They don't last long at all, and rely on being transported vast distances.
Cinnamon is also not the best suggestion- there is a very good reason spices were considered a luxury, as they aren't truly necessary and rely on being transported long distances.
Baking powder is a reasonable suggestion, as it stores essentially indefinitely. Making it is theoretically possible, but it isn't a project I'd recommend for an inexperienced chemist. Although if things are at that point, bread likely won't be your highest priority.
Sourdough would be a viable suggestion, there is a reason the miners in the Yukon gold rush used it. It can be made with ingredients that can be locally sourced/grown nearly anywhere. However, it does rely on refrigeration.
Sure, sure, but you can just freeze applesauce or the bananas. It'll last ages. It'll definitely outlast any temporary supply chain stall. Cinnamon lasts forever too, and it's very compact powdered. I have like half a kilogram and I don't even bake that often.
Truly thing you can make quick breads pretty easily and without any work at all and the goods for it will last ages. Even flour.
Actually, the modern freezer will keep you safe and secure for ages.
All you need is electricity and you can outlast any temporary supply chain stall with this stuff. People buying flour are perfectly fine.
It's okay to be annoyed that people are making it hard to practise your hobby. Just sounds silly when folks try to make it out to be some irrational thing that other people are trying things.
We're still missing my original point: the kind of people who rush out and buy 2 bags of flour at the last minute and have otherwise not prepared to be self-sufficient for more than a couple of meals? They absolutely have not frozen a stockpile of bananas to use when yeast is scarce.
I wasn't trying to hate on quickbreads- banana bread is too good of a dessert to throw shade at. It just doesn't strike me as something particularly practical in a discussion of supply chain shortages.
To be fair, I was coming from the viewpoint of not being able to find things long-term and using what you can grow and source locally, but that isnt practical for people who live in cities.
You're not wrong at all. I joke with my friends that I'm "buying stocks for the future: canned goods and ammunition". I'm by no means an "End Of The World Prepper", but your series of questions are exactly the kinds of questions I like to be able to answer in a doesn't-sound-too-crazy-way:
> Do you have yeast and other ingredients already?
Yup.
> Is your water service and electricity / gas still working?
We've got two camping jugs full of water that we keep full (20 gal each?) and change the water out of at least every 6 months. In the summer they're drinking water for the cabin, in the winter they're for emergencies.
I've got a 3kW generator that I use for field work, and a 30L jug of fresh gas. It gets used in the field all summer and tucked away in the winter.
> Do you have experience baking bread?
It's fun!
> Or access to a recipe book?
Stored locally on my computer, and the favourite recipes are written on recipe cards because I'm scared to get water in my laptop or iPad in the kitchen :)
> or is your Internet service provider still operating?
That's probably the trickiest of all of them. If both the cell network and the coax network go down here, we've lost communication other than the short-range 2m ham kit (also a hobby)
> You might be eating cold gruel with water from the creek, if you even know that's a thing.
For the first while, at least it's going to be hot gruel. My portable hiking stove and pot are nearby along with the sleeping bags and tent. Because I like camping :). I am going to go look up a gruel recipe here though!
> But wait! There's more! All the supply chains near you have just collapsed. Everyone's going hungry once they've gone through their 2 (or 0) bags of flour. Is your house about to be looted? Can you secure it?
Secure it permanently? No, probably not. Secure it well enough that looters would go elsewhere for the time being? Yup. At that point we'd be packing up to get out of dodge and head to the cabin or farm.
> Are the phones and police dispatch still working?
That definitely seems like a weak link. Around here there's been a huge push to move all of the existing copper landlines to fibre or coax, with battery backups in peoples' houses.
> Do you have anything else to eat with your week's supply of bread?
Kraft Dinner, canned chilli, and a bunch of home-canned vegetables (it's fun!).
Longer term, it's going to depend quite a bit on what time of the year it is. There's a root cellar at the family farm that is full at the end of harvest, and there's fresh veggies all summer. I've got about 80 rounds of .308 (I hunt, it's fun!) for big game, about 100 12ga birdshot rounds, and about a bazillion rounds of .22LR for smaller game. Father-in-law has a grain bin full of lentils I think, although I don't know if there's any specific processing that needs to happen between harvest and "ready to eat".
> Are you even emotionally prepared for what life is like now if things are getting this bad and you just now decided to have some extra flour on hand?
That's... hard to tell. In this scenario with riots and looting, we know where we'd run to, and I think we'd be fine for a while when we get there, but I'm not sure either of us are ruthless enough to actually make it there if shit is really bad.
> Wait - is that a fever and non-productive cough you're starting to feel?
That's definitely a wildcard in all of it too. The area around our "out of town" spot does have a small primary care clinic, but no intensive care facilities. Might be able to find compressed oxygen and a nasal cannula, but need a ventilator? GL;HF.
> What are you wiping your ass with!?
Old socks :D. More seriously though... I should pick up a jug of lye crystals next time I'm at the hardware store. Making soap from scratch is fun too! (although I'd rather make it from pre-extracted vegetable oil and lye crystals than rendered animal fat and lye extracted from wood ash)
I thought the whole rugged laptop thing was a bit hokey for a while, and then I watched a local telco guy set his Toughbook down to tie his boot. He forgot to pick it back up and backed over it with his van. Jumped out, terrified. Opened it up and you could just watch the tension release as it woke up from sleep and worked fine.
And just in case you think I'm a terrible person for sitting back and watching... I was trying to get to him, but he didn't hear me yell and backed up before I got to him :)
As a Toughbook owner since the Pentium-90 days, they're a mixed bag. Everything you hear about them is true. I've shot up some old ones to see what calibers they'll withstand (.22 and birdshot, not much else), and I've used them in the rain, dropped them down stairs, launched rockets off one when I forgot the pad and didn't want to make another trip back home...
...but what you don't hear is all the annoying stuff. At least the old ones had super lame BIOS functionality, perhaps intended for a corporate environment where allowing the user to boot from USB (and this reinstall their OS) was actually a bad thing. The keyboards range from "mediocre" to "godawful". They're at least a generation behind in pretty much everything, and about 4 generations behind in max RAM capacity, for some reason. Since RAM tends to bottleneck my usage long before CPU, that means they become irrelevant a lot sooner than a Thinkpad with the same CPU, for instance.
And of course, the metal shell means that RF is tricky. They do all sorts of tricks to get the wifi signal out, with antennas inside plastic pods on the sides and stuff, but it's always a game of compromises.
Know that going in, and you can be very happy with a used Toughbook. I would have to be spending someone else's money to buy a new one.
Heh, conveniently the field work is generally funded with someone else’s money :D
Thanks for the heads up! I’m not sure what we’ll settle on exactly yet, but it’s not going to be my personal laptop that I’m bringing out into farmers’ fields this year!
So let's say things have collapsed to the point that all the bakeries or supply chains leading to you are now out of commission. It's time to bake bread and you have flour. Do you have yeast and other ingredients already? They're already in shortages too. Is your water service and electricity / gas still working? Do you have experience baking bread, or access to a recipe book, or is your Internet service provider still operating? Okay - let's say the bread supply has collapsed completely and all of these things are still working out for you - great - you can bake some bread! But honestly, even that's pretty lucky. You might be eating cold gruel with water from the creek, if you even know that's a thing.
But wait! There's more! All the supply chains near you have just collapsed. Everyone's going hungry once they've gone through their 2 (or 0) bags of flour. Is your house about to be looted? Can you secure it? Are the phones and police dispatch still working? Do you have anything else to eat with your week's supply of bread? Are you even emotionally prepared for what life is like now if things are getting this bad and you just now decided to have some extra flour on hand? Wait - is that a fever and non-productive cough you're starting to feel? What are you wiping your ass with!?
If all you have in mind is last-minute hoarding of a few staples, you're contributing to a wider short-term problem and your staples won't keep you sane and healthy very long. If you're bored in quarantine, now's a good time to start planning to be more prepared and self-sufficient for the next event.