Food fight?

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in different places.

~ Mat 24:7

Reading the newspaper is almost like reading the last books of the Bible sometimes. We have wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes in diverse places, the threat of superbugs like bird flu... even our food supply seems to be coming up with one poison after another. I don't remember seeing too many food recalls even a few years ago, but I've been seeing about one every month recently. Even the toothpaste and pet food is coming up messed up.

Between hurricane Katrina and the bird flu scare (which is a threat that hasn't really gone away it just doesn't make news any more), I have started to become a food collector. An extra box of cereal here, a bag of beans there. Stuff that will last a while.

I'm very budget conscious... I notice when the prices go up. The price of a gallon of store brand water, for example, has gone up $.09 in the past year at my local grocery store. The price of a 2-liter bottle of soda has gone up about $.25 in the last 6 months (they're always having sales so sometimes it is higher than that and occasionally lower, but the that's the raise of the typical price). Bread has gone up $.20 in the last 2 months. And many other items which I used to be able to get for $1 during the store's low point in their sales cycle has gone up to $1.25 during the low point in their sales cycle.

I used to be able to get a whole week's worth of food for $40, for me, dh, and my toddler. Now I'm spending $80. The $40 value wasn't 20 years ago... it was 3 years ago. Now, part of the grocery increase was due to us having more money and buying more stuff that's not on sale. $10 of that money goes to buy my dh's lunches... if he took leftovers to lunch that amount would go down. If I shopped the same way as 3 years ago, I'm pretty sure I would need at least $65 a week to buy the same amount of food that $40 could buy 3 years ago.

I've been reading a lot about crops getting destroyed due to a salmonella outbreak, chickens being slaughtered because they have bird flu, and herds of cows being killed because some cow has mad cow disease. With all this food being destroyed, I can't help but wonder if the world's food supply is not going to meet the demand one of these days. Then I see this article. I guess that I'm not the only person concerned about the food supply. Especially with the recent surge in popularity of Ethanol, which causes more corn to be diverted to making energy instead of food.

The day will come one day when food is scarce. That's what the Bible says. Hopefully it will be a while from now, but just in case, I'll pick up an extra box of cheerios at the grocery store this week.

6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say, A choenix of wheat for a denarius, and three choenixes of barley for a denarius. And do not hurt the oil and the wine.

7 And when He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, Come and see.

8 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him sitting on it was Death, and Hell followed with him. And authority was given to them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death and by the beasts of the earth.

~ Rev 6:6-8