What to do if there's a meat shortgage?
 

More and more meat processing plants are shutting down due to the pandemic. What'll you do if you find meat is too expensive or scarce? Maybe I will learn to like all those sardines I bought....

For now, I'll probably keep doing what I've been doing: grab what's on sale or reduced when I have the chance, keep rotating what's in the freezer, avoid waste as much as possible.

If we get really low, I'm sure we'll be eating a lot more eggs and dairy. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.

Talked to guy at meat dept an hour ago. No pork from Smithfield available but Shaws found another source in Maine and New York to supply us with pork..

HARDER to source some of the specialty meats like the ground meats.

So Shaw,s is working to fill the cases from other lesser known companies .

A Tyson plant shutdown just a bit ago. :\

But let's say our worst fears come to pass. Do you have a Plan B?

Eggs would work. Tofu? Start raising rabbits? (I couldn't slaughter them!)

I guess eggs and cheese would have to be plan B, along, maybe, with canned tuna fish and sardines. Maybe some nut butters. I'm not a tofu fan so that would be out for me. Possibly some fresh wild-caught seafood would be available. I'm not a big fan of most fish in general but I like shellfish and would be happy if shrimp was available also!

I have : eggs, chickens, ducks, and sheep. Plan B .

"What'll you do if you find meat is too expensive or scarce?"

I'll find out what I'll do when the time comes. Until then, RELAX! - worrying about it probably does more harm than eating donuts.

Meat and poultry will likely be more expensive, but I doubt it will disappear from store shelves altogether. Farmers will send their stock to smaller, local packers instead of those gigantic centralized factories. Personally, I think that's a good thing.
Agreed :)

Yes. This is an important step to getting rid of factory farms, an oxymoron which endangers all our health.

And as long as I have mayo, I love me some canned fish :lol: Also, there's plan C: be a farmhand for Ms Arielle :lol:

We raise our own beef and my MIL has chickens for eggs.
Now to BUY actual chicken to cook...that's hard to find right now.
It's hit or miss at my local grocery store...same at Wallyworld.
Luckily...we like tuna and some fish. We Live near lake Erie. If worse comes to worse...I'll get out there and FISH my dinner. LOL

LOL! Yikes, I can't STAND sardines! We're in trouble now!

Here you go!Ways to make sardines taste better:

Straight out of the can with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
On a Caesar salad with homemade or avocado oil Caesar dressing
Mashed into half of an avocado with a squeeze of fresh lemon
In place of tuna in “tuna salad” with homemade mayo mustard, and pickles
With cottage cheese and hot sauce
Fisherman’s eggs- bake sardines with onions, eggs, and spices
Scrambled into eggs and topped with hollandaise sauce
Mix canned sardines with some chopped red onions and olives

If things get REALLY bad there are always low carb shakes and bars, although they are very pricey and, as we all know, have their issues as well.

"In place of tuna in “tuna salad” with homemade mayo mustard, and pickles"

Done this. works great, bones and all.

Before:



After:

I can eat sardines, but there's always a yuck factor for me. Even trying to disguise it with everything. Which is weird because I like anchovies, canned smoked trout, smoked mackerel, salmon, tuna, almost all fish.

Living in the suburbs of So. CA there aren't too many options for self-sufficiency outside of garden stuff.

Not sure that planning on turning to eggs and dairy in the event of a meat shortage is a very viable "plan B."

At least in my part of the country, eggs have been as scarce as hen's teeth ever since mid-March. (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun :) )Plenty of meat still available at prices still close to pre-Covid19 regular prices. But eggs? They've not been readily available for the last 6 weeks.

My local grocery is now offering eggs for online shoppers only as: "Best available eggs, 12 count, up to $6.34" As I understand it, if you want eggs...regardless of source...and IF you're willing to pay up to that much, you click to put this in your shopping cart. And then, IF there are any eggs available when your order is filled, your personal shopper picks out whatever he/she considers the "best available" and you pay whatever those eggs actually cost. If there are eggs from multiple sources available, your personal shopper decides what "best available" means. You don't get a chance to say " I ONLY want free-range high Omega-3 eggs, am willing to pay whatever those cost but unwilling to eat factory-farmed eggs no matter how cheap they are." or "I ONLY want eggs if they cost less than $2 per dozen." So, very likely, people who are deeply opposed to factory farming are getting cheap white factory-farmed eggs while other people, who can't really afford is are winding up paying up to $6.35 per dozen when they were buying eggs for $1.80/dozen six weeks ago.

Its not a system I have any desire to participate in. The last time I got any eggs was over a month ago when I swapped a nearby neighbor a couple of rolls of toilet paper for a dozen eggs from her back-yard chickens. Since then she's been consistently selling out while charging as much as $7 to $8 per dozen! And, honestly, her eggs weren't that great. The chickens obviously needed more calcium in their diets because the shells were super thin. One cracked open as I was lifting it out of the box!

Those prices make eggs about 6 to 8 times as expensive per ounce than chicken legs and thighs. So, we've been doing without. I certainly can't plan on turning to eggs as a protein source if meat becomes scarce.

Dairy? Maybe? But only if producers who used to market to restaurants and schools are allowed to market directly to consumers. Not sure where most of us would store a restaurant-sized wheel of cheese.

No shortage where I am. Still buying ribeyes, t-bones and strip steaks in the $5 per pound range. I was at the weekly cattle auction two weeks ago and the meat packers are still buying.