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>If one staple food disappears, the country won't just starve; that would be stupid. shortage of staple food will cause price spike with related economical/pol
by VladRussian2 13y ago
>If one staple food disappears, the country won't just starve; that would be stupid.
shortage of staple food will cause price spike with related economical/political/social effects. Staple food isn't just a whimsical choice of consumer. Beside some exceptions (where people moved and brought their tradition with them), a staple food is a result of hundreds or thousands of years of evolutionary optimization for that population in that region. Milk in Europe is exactly such a case, and is a very important one to the population there. (see my other post in this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7034795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7034795). Specifically, in case of milk in Norway any issues with its availability, in addition to short term price-spike related effects, would in long term affect negatively health and well being of children whose body/skeleton would be forming at the time.
- thaumasiotes 13y agoI'm completely on board with the idea that eliminating milk from the northwest european diet would be hugely disruptive and have unknown knock-on nutritional effects due to long-term adaptation to milk consumption. My point in that area was limited to the idea that hunger wouldn't be an issue. However, my other point, that Norway can easily import 100% of its food demand (see "if Norway entirely stopped producing food, it would still eat just fine"), stands.