If, like many of my readers, you're expecting a major contraction of the global economy as we know it, you may have a vague idea that you should be hoarding some essentials. Or not.

I had the dubiously good fortune of being deeply involved with the major big box retail chains for nine years up to 2005. I visited a Kmart distribution center outside Chicago in 1996. That was when it hit me that all the protests in the world were not going to stem the tide of Wal-Marts, putting small town stores out of business everywhere.

I saw the acres of cement floors, fleets of forklifts and pallet jacks, miles of tractor trailer bays, webs of conveyors, and towers of racks. All run by computers reading barcodes, directing carton routes like air traffic controllers. In one side of the building from manufacturers and out the other to the stores, where employees wouldn't even have to check what arrived, because it was already in the stores' inventory. Or some variation on that theme.  



The system was designed for efficient distribution. Customers were expected to drive to 'destination stores' in large vehicles and fill them up with merchandise that, in the old days (say, the early eighties – this happened fast) we would have 'gone downtown' or at least strolled through a mall.

All of this was based on cheap gasoline. If you suspect that those days will soon be over, then expect that quite suddenly many trucking firms will fall by the wayside. Some of the old clunkers that have been sprinkling the odd row of containers of rubber duckies, sneakers, and computers into the Pacific will be taken out of service.

The stuff we've been taking for granted will not be flowing in those loading docks very reliably. Anyway, I'm probably preaching to the choir here. What I have to offer in the 10 in 10  Diet is an easy, pleasant transition to eating foods that started out dry and in bulk. Some people think they have to hoard cans of Spam and freeze-dried vegetable flakes, neither of which they want to eat unless they're forced to.

Why not get accustomed to eating in a way that doesn't depend on ten different truck trips between the farm field and your stove? If you're fortunate enough to be able to garden, you might at least practice growing some dry bush beans, just to know that you have that option. If you can get locally grown grain, so much the better. The more we give our business to local growers, the more they'll grow.

My attitude is, enjoy living now, the way you expect we may have no choice but to live, later. Or something like it.

My partner, Andrew MacDonald, discusses our approach to the future here at Radical Relocalization.com

Cheap Suppers  Recipes to Print  Eating Beans  My Road to 10in10

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