This past week I have been reading and listening to so many reports and interviews in regards to the cost and or availability of food and its effects on the day to day life of our fellow Canadian’s and Globally.

A Couple of them really stick in my minds eye

Case 1 It was a in-depth talk about the fact that approx. 50% of all current open restaurants are not making a profit and that most are a going to close down as soon as they need to start doing paybacks on the federal loans.  I want you to read that again  Across the country 50% of all our places that serve food on all different levels, from coffee shops, bakery’s, small soup and sandwich, mom and pop dinners to fast food to fancy sit down to pubs and more are all running in the red right now.

How many peaple that are already living on the edge working in those food related business are going to find themselves without a paycheck and how many of those business owners are going to find themselves underwater not only at business but also at risk of losing their homes due to pulling out huge lines of credit based on the housing market of the past few years and with no business income combined with rising interest rates, how are they going to pay their bills.

Case 2 1 in 10 households in Toronto (our biggest most populated city in our country) are currently using food banks to get food on the table for themselves and their families.

Do you have a finger on the pulse of food banks in your town or neck of the woods? What are you seeing? Do you use a food bank yourself or do you have a loved one that does? Locally I have been told by folks that use the community supported food share program I am involved in that the food banks are limiting how many times you can use them monthly and that the boxes and what they have in them is shrinking.

“food bank usage has smashed another record this year, with more than 2.5 million visits between April 2022 and March 2023 — a 51 per cent increase from the year before — and there are no signs of slowing down, according to this year’s Who’s Hungry report from Daily Bread and North York Harvest food banks.

Daily Bread and North York Harvest indicate in the report they are anticipating Toronto food bank visits in 2023 will surpass three million visits.” Qoute CBC article linked above

Case 3 Last week, the local ottawa (our counties National CAPITAL) SPCA came on to announce that they had 90 new cats that have been surrendered to them in one week alone.

Number one reason given, cost of pet food, pet care and vet care. Now I give credit to those owners for at least trying to make sure their cats find new homes but we know that they tried to find them new homes with friends/family and reaching though there own networks first and that they only turned to the spca as a last choice.

 Peaple who do not care will turn them out and say, go hunt or worse yet they take them for a drive and find a farm and drop them off.. How many times have I had that happen.. o look a lost scared non feral drop off most likely expecting has arrived on my door step..

No, these are well cared for pets, loved, most of them already vetted and altered, it came down to food costs, those owners took a hard look at their budgets and they gave up their pet into care to have that money available for extras, and I am guessing that those extras include rent, heat, power and food!

Have you notice the price increase in pet food costs, locally here there are programs growing to supply pet food to seniors in order for them to keep their pets. Locally so many of the cat rescues have closed doors due to massive vet bills due owning as the pets keep flowing in but the amount of gift giving by their followers is down.

An the list goes on, I could pick out more, so I ask you, how did your garden grow and do this year? Did you get things put up? Did you buy in bulk? Did you get in a half or whole beef? Did you raise meat birds (and feed costs are a whole different post topic)? Are you hunting?  Now is the time we should be heading into winter with full freezers and dried and canning pantry’s..

So how is yours looking? In general, same on par? Cost you a bit more but overall no real notice of a difference?  Mine is looking lean but good overall.

If you just went huh, let me touch on that just a bit, lean in the sense that we will be eating a lot of chicken, duck, beef and venison over the winter.  We have a few turkeys in the freezer and we will have a little bit of lamb, but we are out of pork, and I am not sure I am buying a half or whole yet.  We will have lots of eggs both chicken and duck and of course my sheep for fresh milk.

Its the same way for the canning pantry, its plentiful but its basic.

The main pantry is much the same at this time,  I am not spending money on “we might like it” instead I am focused on we use this, used the last of this or that, if it took me more then a year to go though the working tub, its not getting replaced at this point.

Where this is different, is the spices, dressings and sauces.. that’s where I am expanding. Ways to take something that is basic like Chicken or Beef and create all different kinds of flavor profiles while still using the basics.

What about you? Are you dialing it back down to the hard core basics?