Go to the pantry, open the door and look in. 

What do you see? 

A box of Cheerios, a couple boxes of mac and cheese? Some rice?  Two or three cans of tuna and a jar of peanut butter?

Girly girl, if a disaster were to strike at this very moment, do you have enough food to survive with what is on-hand?  And if so, for how long? 

Think of this.  If you could never buy groceries again, ever (well - in the traditional since that is), how would you survive?

How many times have we roamed around the kitchen moaning “there’s nothing here to eat” when in reality, there’s plenty.  We’ve just grown complacent and are too darn lazy to cook, prepare or eat whatever is in our cupboards.  Right?

Let me share this little known fact about how food gets to our grocery store – maybe this will be an eye-opener and you will be more appreciative of that can of tuna. 

I’ll try not to get too detaily – because to tell you the truth - this is a little mind boggling for me too.

Our food distribution system or the system that gets the food that we buy to the shelves of our grocery store - is like a linked chain.  It’s made up of suppliers working with distributors that send food to the retailers, which in turn is placed on the shelves for us to buy.  

I know it’s a little technical, but if you put it to the song, Dry Bones - you know “the leg bone is connected to the hip bone” … it would go like this:

la la …’the supplier is connected to the distributor, the distributor is connected to the retailer, the retailer is connected to store, and the food goes on the shelf’ la la. 

Okay, so maybe that didn’t work out so well - but you get the gist – each link of the chain has a job to do.

Now throw this little tid-bit into the equation.  The whole chain system is connected by computers!  

So … if this system crashes, or a disaster totally wiped out the computer system - everything would just stop. 

And the everything in this situation would mean, E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.  
Without the computers telling each chain link that it is time to replenish the shelves – this information would not get to the suppliers, distributors, retailers, or shelves.

Wal-Mart for example, has a computer system that identifies each item that we buy and uses this information to reorder inventory.   So, again if the “reordering” link can’t get to the supplier and distributor links – there is no food to be delivered to the stores

As a rule, most stores have about a three day supply of food on their shelves.  I would venture to guess that this would be wiped out in a matter of hours in a disaster or major catastrophe.  Ya think??  

So what can we do?

Well I would suggest, if you haven’t already, begin storing as much food and water as possible (remember to use a rotation system to prevent any food spoilage – first in first out.)

No one knows how long it will take for a disaster or catastrophe to right itself – if ever, so always prepared for the worst.

- Survivor Jane

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