On Mon, 20 Nov 2006 19:57:19 -0600, Philip <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:28:22 -0600, Robert Kesterson
> wrote:
> ... Truffles are also difficult (if not impossible) to domesticate.
> Naturally raised meats and vegetables are not in the same category.
I wasn't trying to imply that truffles are in precisely the same category
as meats and vegetables; rather I was responding to the argument that
people will never steal Paleo foods when they are not starving. My point
was that if a food, whether animal or plant, is valuable enough, some
people will steal it. If the price of pasture-fed meats or organic
vegetables were to rise high enough, people would steal livestock,
poultry, food-bearing trees or especially rare and valuable produce even
if they weren't hungry, in order to sell it and make a profit. Armed men
steal and even kill for truffles today because of their economic value,
not because they are hungry. Believe it or not, people already steal
commercial livestock today, which is why Mississippi has an Agricultural
Theft Bureau
(http://www.mdac.state.ms.us/n_library/departments/ag_theft/index_agtheft.h
tml). If the prices of livestock increase dramatically over the coming
decades, the level of theft is likely to go up.
If Cordain is correct about his assertion that the supply of Paleo foods
is limited, even with increases in production, then a growing popularity
in Paleo foods will one day result in substantial price increases in those
foods, some more than others. The market prices of Paleo foods are already
higher, on the whole, than the prices of modern foods (yes there are ways
to economize on a Paleo diet, but there are also ways to economize even
more on a modern diet). My guess is that they have always been higher on
average--at least since the industrial revolution--and they always will
be. As Cordain states, "for most of the world's people" his Paleo Diet
already "lies beyond their financial reach."
Anyone who believes in the validity of Paleolithic nutrition surely
believes the truth will eventually gradually win out and the demand for
Paleo foods will therefore increase. With only so much increases in
production of Paleo foods being possible (much less so than the processed
foods of industry), further price increases appear inevitable.
> Couple that
> with the massive mind-shift that is necessary, and I just don't see it
> happening. Grains aren't going away.
Grains are not a Paleo food--I was speaking exclusively of Paleo foods and
Cordain's estimate that about 600 million or fewer people could be
supported by Paleo foods, which is less than 10% of the world's current
population. So he is saying there is a limit to how much of the Paleo
foods can be produced and how many people can eat them, which means that
as demand for this limited supply of foods increases there will be
inevitable price increases at some point in the future. Sure, there can be
some increases in production, but not enough to support more than the 600
million figure, if we are to believe Cordain. As Cordain stated, "Grains,
legumes, and tubers are the starchy foods that have allowed our planet's
population to balloon to more than 6 billion. ... Without them, the world
could probably support one-tenth or less of our present population [which
at the time of the book's publishing in 2001 would have come to about 620
million]; without agriculture's cheap starchy staples [such as grains], it
is no exaggeration to say that billions of people worldwide would starve."
>> By saying that Paleo foods can only support up to 600 million people
>> (possibly fewer), Cordain is indicating that there are limits to how
much
>> the supply of Paleo foods can be increased.
> I think it is easy to underestimate mankind's ingenuity.
Perhaps. As I stated before, if anyone has information about a better
estimate than Cordain's I would love to see it.
>> The greenhouse and co-ops are good suggestions, folks.
> There are several farmers market directories online, for example:
You gave more good reasons for using greenhouses and gardens, Robert, but
local farmers' markets and food co-ops are a somewhat different story.
Community-based farmers' markets and food co-ops are not immune to market
pricing (even where their prices are much lower than at nearby
supermarkets, they are still subject to price increases when market prices
rise, so as to cover their rising costs), so they are not a complete
shield from the future Paleo food price increases that Cordain's
assertions suggest. The prices at farmers' markets and food co-ops have to
rise with the market as their costs rise because if they sold below-cost
they would go out of business (some are subsidized, but not to the point
of preventing any price increases). The ability to work for food at some
food co-ops is a partial shield against price increases, but as prices
rise, one will tend to get less food for the same hour of labor.
|