Food Chain

My thoughts on the food chain. There will be nothing (or very little) to hunt! Must come up with better idea. Food supplements, then grow food. What to grow? That's what we should be looking at. Earth worms, meal worms, rats, bunnies, or what ever. These all take food, and like beef I think they may need to eat more than you get in return.

Offered by Bruce.

Humans will be just like all those other poor animals trying not to starve out in the weather with no sunlight or plants and all that rain and not a plant in sight! By far, the vast proportion of the population of the world subsists mostly from carbohydrates derived from vegetation (as in rice, corn, and wheat) and when they are able, supplement that with meat in some form. In the industrialized world, people eat both vegetation and meat in a proportion of approximately 3 parts vegetable or derivative and one part meat. In some cultures, because of tradition and environment, the bulk eaten is meat. As a working citizen of the current US, I am most definitely at the top of the food chain. In normal times my diet is about 3 parts vegetable to 1 part meat.

Offered by Ron.

I think many of the assumptions about the need for hunting and for ruthlessness come from a post-apocalyptic fear of going without, creating a Mad Max mentality, a predatory, merciless society in which the only rule is "might makes right." Hunting is part of this mentality. Lots of other species don't have the inventiveness or foresight to profitably choose other alternatives, but humans do.

Offered by Jenny.

But what do you suggest people do when they have no plant food? If you can create and sustain an agricultural community that survives the pole shift, great! I would also love to be a part of it. But there will be so many of the few survivors who don't know how to grow food and won't be in any position to do so anyway. What do you suggest they do to survive?

Offered by Doug.

I think that everyone is becoming too hung up on growing green or seeing red. What we will need in the Aftertime is to be able to capitalize on the other natural systems that will be at work and in force after the pole shift. Decay, i.e. things that flourish in environments where things are dead or dying. If we can find the things that help decay along in its processes then we will be that much further ahead. I'm really excited about the prospect of eating bugs and I'm going to start as soon as we can see them again in my area. I think also that mushroom cultivation (not discovery), will be an option for people that don't have the time to prepare for energy to grow with or can hold the people that prepared for the shift, but had things that were essential broken. Understanding the systems that will be working around us without our effort or forethought will be key. Minimal effort, abundant supply, high nutritional content.

Offered by John.