Fiat Food Is Here, What Are You Going To Do About It?

Teresa Ghilarducci wrote an article for Bloomberg about ways to reduce spending in the face of our recent inflation problem. The Tweet promoting the article bullet pointed taking the bus, not buying in bulk, eating lentils instead of meat and in the article she talked about thinking twice about expensive medical care for pets. This got torched on Twitter.

I like to read Ghilarducci's articles even though I disagree with where she is coming from philosophically. As best as I can tell, she puts no stock in self-sufficiency or taking action to prevent/solve problems. I take her as believing the government can solve a lot of our problems for us. Teresa, if this makes your radar and my take is wrong, I'd love to hear from you.

The Barron's cover story this week was about food inflation. The first paragraph included an anecdote about a 29 year old single mother who "is cutting back on fresh produce and meat in exchange for less-nutritious but cheaper items while often unable to find inexpensive staples like pasta."

Saifedean Ammous, author of The Bitcoin Standard and The Fiat Standard, wrote about this exact thing referring to it as fiat food. When I first heard about fiat food I just thought it was a reference to high carb food that is unhealthy, so pervasive in the standard American diet and making us so sick. It sort of is that but with a more insidious underpinning. The basic idea is that government policy, the Fed has a seat at this table too, is inflationary, it erodes our purchasing power on purpose forcing people to food choices like mentioned above, being forced to switch to unhealthier food that is cheaper in nominal terms but will make us sick and require we start taking medication to treat these fiat diet-induced chronic maladies. 

The idea of not buying in bulk because it is not cheaper? Is that anyone's experience? I couldn't put my finger on it but Joe Norman took that as Ghilarducci saying not to prepare for anything. That resonates with me. I've been saying since before the pandemic started that we're not accumulating a year's worth of food or anything like that but want to keep a couple of weeks ahead of our needs to avoid the type of hassle that goes with empty store shelves and other disruptions. 

It sounds conspiracy theory-ish, doesn't it? Of course it does but it is happening. Arguably the push many years ago for more seed oil consumption is also part of it. Drug companies supposedly were involved in the creation of the food pyramid many decades ago pushing more grains and other carby foods. Statins are part of all of this too, they definitely lower cholesterol but cholesterol is not what is clogging us up and killing us, it's the sugar (carbs). Statins are a huge money maker for the drug companies, huge money maker with some lousy side effects and that don't prevent heart attacks. 

Does this sound crazy to you? Maybe it does but look at where we are. Do your own research on carbs, statins and the rest to draw your own conclusion but this is where we are. We are sicker, poorer and not taught or even encouraged to solve our own problems. It has continued with Covid. Vitamin D, Pepcid, Oil of Oregano, low dose aspirin, Vitamin C and a few others provide plenty of protection (look for it online) against Covid and can coexist with anything else you've done for yourself in regard to Covid. I am not making an anti-vax argument, I am saying that where so many of us are sick with chronic maladies that make up more vulnerable to Covid being serious, why wouldn't you do more?

All this is essentially ground zero for how I've come to live my life and what I've been writing about almost 16 years now, the importance of preventing or solving your own problems. 

Someone close to me got very sick with Covid last year and had to stay in the hospital. In the process of getting treated they learned they have Type 2 Diabetes and had to start taking insulin. I don't know how much they make but I believe they make a fine living, not a ton of money but a fine living. I don't know how much, if anything, they need to pay out of pocket for insulin but some people are paying hundreds of dollars per month. Think about that new expense combined with now paying 30% more for food, 40% more for gas, I don't even know how much natural gas/propane has gone up for heating your home and so on. 

This link had insulin costing $450/mo back in 2016. It's gone up since then of course and it depends on your insurance coverage, how much you actually pay. Could there be scenarios where people are paying $800/mo now? And their food bill just went up and all the rest. Ammous might refer to this as a form of slavery, fiat slavery. Could all of these things add up to an extra $1000/mo in expenses? More? Where is your limit on what you can afford?

Back to Ghilarducci suggesting lentils. According to WebMd, lentils have 12 grams of protein in a 140 calorie serving. That same serving also has a whopping 23 grams of carbohydrates. According to Very Well Fit, a 218 calorie serving of red meat, that's only 3 ounces, has 24 grams of protein and no carbohydrates. You'd likely eat more than 3 ounces of meat, maybe you'd eat about half a pound? For simple math, 9 ounces of meat would have 72 grams of protein. To get the same amount of protein from lentils you'd need to eat 4.6 times the amount of that original serving amount. Hold on though, protein bioavailability in beef is 92% compared to 70% (which is pretty good for a legume) for lentils so you'd need to eat even more lentils. If you want to try this, make sure you don't have immediate plans to leave your home. And eating that much lentils would be a carbohydrate festival making you a different kind of sick. She is promoting fiat food even if she is oblivious to the concept.

The realistic outcome of fiat food is eating less protein and more carbohydrates and seed oils. Given the history of the food pyramid and all the rest, there's an argument that this conspiracy theory may not be a theory. Best case, we've gotten to this point because of incompetence. 

Regardless of whether it's conspiracy or incompetence, we cannot rely on the people who got us here, politicians, government, food companies or drug companies, to fix it. It is up to us to fix it for ourselves, to prevent our problems from happening or solve them for ourselves when they do happen. No one will care more about our outcomes than us. 

Back to Ghilarducci again, her suggestions are reactionary to what is happening. Paraphrasing myself, you don't want to wake up on day one of a crisis and say "ok, now what am I going to do?" 

Living below your means and taking care of your health and fitness are both low hanging fruit in this conversation, I've been writing about that forever and living it even longer. All of the problems people, including my friend above, might be having now are a little easier when you are under mortgaged, or no mortgage, don't have car payments, aren't drowning in credit card debt and not shelling out $X00/mo for insulin. 

And the thing is, it's not too late. Here is information about a study that showed people can reverse T2D by fasting for 72 hours. Of course, anyone for whom that is successful would then need to change their habits. I'm not saying that would work for everyone with T2D, but why the hell wouldn't you try it? A slower path to the same outcome can be just cutting carb consumption significantly. Again, won't work for everyone but why the hell wouldn't you try? Lifting weights and skipping breakfast will give you more bang for your low carb buck. The body is very forgiving and it doesn't take long, you just need to do it.

Don't rely on politicians or anyone else to come up with the solution.