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Subscribe to RSSFor bacon lovers, it’s been a complicated week.
First came the news that there was going to be a bacon shortage – followed closely by a debunking of the rumor that bacon lovers would have to do without their beloved meat.
Life Inc. readers reacted with a mixture of humor and horror to the original news that bacon might become scarce. The scare was started by the U.K’s National Pig Association, which predicted a shortage because of droughts.
“Forget the fiscal cliff...this is an emergency,” one reader declared.
Other readers noted that we could perhaps stand to do with a little less of the fatty, salty meat in our diets.
“Terrible, now we will just have to live longer,” said one.
Then, relief. Life Inc. contributor Ben Popken brought a bit of sanity to the bacon panic of 2012 with a reality check from experts who said that while prices may go up a bit, pork rationing is not in our future.
Readers were understandably frustrated by the earlier reports. Still, many bacon lovers also were relieved that they would be able to continue enjoying bacon in all its odd variations.
“Oh thank the lord and pass the bacon,” one reader said.
Others began immediately plotting the other weird and wonderful ways they can enjoy their favored meat.
“When I saw bacon donuts I thought I had seen every conceivable use for bacon and then I saw bacon ice cream! Is there no end for the use of the wonder meat?” one reader opined.
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typical, there's always a shortage but never a actual runout or outage. oddly enough the shortage only lasts till the price goes up
I just bought 200 lbs of bacon and just for good measure bought 1,000 rolls of toilet paper because it was going to disappear too - Oh that was 1970!
Just a thought, but with the 200 lbs of bacon, you're going to need the TP.
Let's use this as a case in point. The bacon issue is not so important. Let's look at how this "issue" grew. A UK article spoke (maybe in exaggerated form) about a likely shortage of bacon (less pork produced in the UK than they consume). Then, the social media and mainstream media grabbed it, without checking facts and blew it into a global bacon shortage crisis and reported it as such.
As rational, fact-based reports started to surface, there is no crisis. The issue was always clear cut in my mind. Let us be more responsible on social media and in the mainstream media when issues are much more important than bacon and maybe not so clear cut.
The reality is that this was an attempt by the UK pork producers to justify the coming increases in prices that will happen.
Not just UK. Expect protein costs to rise significantly globally after the short-term excess meat on the market from liquidation of breeding animals is gone.
This was never about the US rationing pork. This is about livestock producers abroad and in the US being run out of business by erratic markets / $8 corn / drought.
Livestock producers have been forced to take breeding stock to the slaughterhouses because they have lost millions of dollars in profit and corn and grain prices have made feed bills higher than profits.
Without breeding stock the supply of meat falls.
This is impacting more than merely bacon. The media is just now beginning to catch up on what's been going on in the agricultural community.
Rationing--no. Supply dwindling--yes
I wish journalists would do some homework before writing these sort of opinion stories.
This was never about rationing pork.
It's about the decline in breeding herds due to erratic overseas markets and$8 per bu corn prices. This story has been in the news for a couple of years now but American journalists aren't interested in them. The Kardashians take a lot of press time.
Breeding herds have been significantly reduced overseas. The United States has been suffering the same loss in recent months. Livestock producers have been losings millions in periods of days because of kneejerk decisions in by China and Russia.
American producers and investors are weary of the losses and have sought to sell their herds to larger livestock management companies. When those companies turn them away, producers have been left with no choice but to take quality breeding stock to slaughter.
With less breeding stock, figure it out. There will be less animals. After a couple of years of this, quantities have greatly decreased.
It's really no joke. This is another reality for in the agricultural community that many of you in the city are completely unaware of until it impacts your grocery shopping.
Is there reason to panic? No but do use your wisdom in understanding what's going on.
A possible shortage of any type of food is really nothing to giggle about when you consider the numbers of people coming into the United States and their needs for food.
Sounds like someone trying to make excuses to raise prices on consumers by making up fairytales. Typical behavior- just like when a problem develops with some middle eastern country where oil is of concern and we get gouged at the pumps by greedy speculators.
NO. This is no fairytale. This is pure economics of supply and demand. When corn went from $5 per bushel to $8 per bushel in 30 days, it sent livestock producers into major losses. The natural course is to reduce losses by reducing herds. Less meat on the market means higher prices. No fairytale.
Fairytale.
Bullcrap. Bullcrap.
This was a marketing gimmick in order to raise Pork Belly products. When the news story hit, the Pork Belly prices started to skyrocket as "buyers" immediately made calls for future purchases, driving demand up, thereby the COST went up.
Some of you really didn't see the damn link. This was not an excuse about raising the prices of goods. This was an excuse to force prices to go higher on the STOCK MARKET near winter time. When pork prices usually go up already. Now, the prices are going to really soar, because of this ad hoc lie.
Go look at pork belly prices, and tell me i'm wrong. The story caused a panic, which caused the price of pork bellies on the stock market exchange to rise.
And you all bought into it. This was nothing more than to cause the public to panic, to immediately make a run on their local markets, to cause demand to rise. Demand rises, price goes up. Less demand, price goes down.
And you all got hit with it. I'm afraid to call you people fellow human beings, because most of you were idiots.
I do not want to call people names. There is a syndrone, however, of "if it is on the Internet, it must be true". Shame on us for that and shame on the mainstream media for running with a non-story.
Who cares if we run out of bacon, try eating your vegetables instead.