Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an interesting article discussing why, here in the States at least, we are seeing spot shortages in the grocery stores.

It's not just hoarders and preppers and some closed meat processing plants; the change in shopping and eating habits resulting from the large number of persons staying at home are in conflict with the normal supply chains.

Here's one of the factors it mentions:

There are some odd shortages here, for instance flour. More is being bought than usual because there's a lot more home baking going on, but it's not the sort of thing that you would expect people to panic-buy.

Apparently the problem is lack of packaging. Millers are producing plenty of flour and bakeries have no problem getting deliveries of it, but the bags that are used to package it for shelf sale are in short supply.

I don't bake but I routinely use small amounts of plain flour to thicken soups and coat meat balls, and my supply is running low. Fortunately it occurred to me today that I can use other things if flour disappears: for example mashed potato powder.

I doubt the issue can be testosterone. 18 year old males tend to have the highest tested levels while men over 40 tend to have the lowest.
The 18 year olds are not being affected. Older women may have as much as older men.

India is reporting low numbers. They have very low body fat.

A major group in US is those with high body fat. That seems odd because one study seems to suggest that those affected had very low cholesterol. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=3544826 (if they can be believed)

I don't think that having testosterone is the problem, just being male.

Women have been saying that for a very long time.

Yeah, I saw another thread specifically about that from one your fellows.

I haven't noticed any shortage of flour here, but I haven't tried to purchase any recently (I have plenty on hand because I like to bake my own bread from time to time), so I wasn't paying much attention to the flour section. But there are random odd-ball gaps on the shelves from week to week.

Last week, when we had a taste for tuna salad, we found the tuna fish section nearly bare at the store we use most often, but other canned and potted meats were in good supply.

The whole thing is irrational, just like my country . . . .

I am reminded of the fact far to often...

Not only in the US. Obesity puts you at recognised risk of getting covid badly, regardless of age. And the two most obese nations in the developed world are the US and the UK.

That's probably why my country is shaping up to have the worst death figures in Europe.

See for instance https://uk.yahoo.com/news/obesity-de...105013049.html

Yes and that speaks to more than being fat. That shows a poor quality diet, perhaps. It means that those people are eating fat, salt and sugar. And sitting on their back sides.

There are foods that supercharge the immune system. Citrus fruit, cruciferous vegetables, legumes, lots of fiber to clean things out. That gives people more energy, so they move around more. More exercise means increased blood flow though the tissues, which brings more antibodies/enzymes/proteins to the cells. People who eat like that and exercise have a healthier immune system. And they will be a leaner people maybe because of the exercise burning calories.

Sumo wrestlers are fat. They eat 6-8K calories a day. And yet they are healthy medical studies show. It is because of what they eat and of course they vigorously exercise pushing against each other.

So maybe being fat is a symptom of poor diet and no exercise, which compromises the immune system.

I had an unpleasant thought yesterday. I don't think it counts as a conspiracy theory because I don't believe in conspiracies. It might not even be a cockup, just a couple of bad decisions when there were no good ones available. Decanting a lot of old sick people out of hospitals into care homes wasn't exactly a safe thing to do, but it was necessary to clear out the hospitals ready for the coming influx of covid patients. And lack of PPE for care home workers was an inevitable consequence of having a national shortage, because NHS workers obviously took priority. The public love the NHS and they don't like care homes. They think of them as little as possible, because you go into hospital to be cured (hopefully!) but you go into a care home to be warehoused until they take you out again in a coffin.

So a tsunami of covid deaths in care homes was probably inevitable. No one planned it and the top civil servants in the Department of Health were probably horrified by the figures when they came out. At first. But by now they may have seen the silver lining in this thundercloud.

We have had a social care crisis for ten years now, maybe more. There are so many demented old people and it's so expensive to look after them. Their families can't afford it, local authorities can't afford it, and the government can't afford it either. But every time a government (Labour or Conservative) has tried to tackle the issue, they've ended up kicking the can further down the road because no one has found a solution that wouldn't amount to electoral suicide.

Well now we have a solution of sorts. It's not one that anybody ordered but it will save a huge amount of money. Just think of all the pension money that won't have to be paid out, not just this year but for years to come. And the saving on health costs. The government is going to need a huge amount of money to pay off all the new debt it has taken on. Everyone is wondering where that's going to come from. Maybe we know now.

That statement is almost 100% accurate. Diet and exercise are indeed the arbiters of health, but fat is not the problem that Sugar plantation owners successfully made it out to be. Fat is the single most dense source of nutrition. We are all descendants of millions of years of hunter-gatherers, many generations of people, far more than the generations of "civilized", whose diets were primarily meat, and fats prized the most, and water. Recently the numbers of people choosing Paleo and Keto diets have demonstrated reduced body fat, more stamina and burst energy, and improved health over the modern diets high in sugars and carbs. Look around, sugars and corn syrup are in almost everything modern.

Yup, and we've never had higher incidences of Diabetes, pre-Diabetes. What used to be called adult onset Diabetes, (Type 2), now appears in the teenagers. There have been medical documentaries that have told us that 85% of Type 2 Diabetes is preventable with a better diet.

Not even bad decisions, just inaction and or a little delay and the usual bumbling and fumbling. However, the impact is felt strongly in other demographics.

Sugar is bad but apparently corn syrup is worse for the health. The bad flavor it imparts to food and drink just adds insult to injury.

Ever since the lock-down here (London), there have been no flour or eggs on the shelves (literally empty shelves even today), although I would say almost everything else is readily available. I did have a few home-delivery orders set to keep us supplied, but now most of the websites are saying I am too young to order anything. So I have been forced to venture into the actual shops to buy groceries. Hopefully I am not an asymptomatic person spreading it around - I wanted to get home deliveries to protect others as I don't fear it myself (being relatively young and healthy).