WHAT WE'RE LEARNING
If the coronavirus changes protocols in our culture, it will have been well worth it. Time will tell. What is the coronavirus teaching us?
1. Filth and food shouldn't be in the same spot. Wuhan's wet markets, remember, where a city block of nothing but exotic animals was kept in squalor and filth and butchered in the crudest conditions imaginable for people primarily interested in exotic food bragging rights, is asking for trouble. This is not a return to heritage or old times. This is food voyeurism in the extreme and it caught up with humans: crammed conditions, crammed people, crammed government control. All that cramming is a recipe for nature to fight back.
Nature is resilient and can take a lot of abuse, but constant abuse, over time, creates a response. This should make us rethink factory farming from Tyson to feedlots and Smithfield hog factories.
2. Dave Ramsey is right--everyone should have 3-6 months of living expenses accessible. That the average American can't put their hands on $500 in a catastrophe is foolish and absurd. Living paycheck to paycheck is absurd. Until you have that in place, no Starbucks, no eating out, no discretionary spending. People without a 3-6 month cushion should be terrified. They should feel like they're heading for a cliff in a car without brakes.
How many people are blaming others, from the Chinese to the Republicans to the Democrats for all this and failing to look inward at their own lack of preparation for disaster. Prepping for crisis should come as naturally as night following day, but it shows our luxurious free-for-all living in recent decades that the average American can't even handle a 2-week bobble in pay. So those of us who do plan will now watch while those who don't get special treatment, which builds resentment and is socially unjust, to use a favorite phrase of the entitled.
3. Your personal immunity is perhaps your greatest physical asset. It's more important than travel experiences, more important than video games and more important than beer. Taking charge of your personal immunity program should be front and center. That means not doing the things that compromise it, and doing the things that enhance it. We don't know every little nuance of this strategy, but we certainly know enough to get started.
Compromise: stress (lack of forgiveness, feelings of vengeance and hate--political included); lack of sleep (everyone should be in bed by 11 p.m.); worry; poor diet (Coca-Cola should not exist); junk food; not enough meat and poultry and eggs (sorry, I couldn't resist); lack of exercise; lack of touching nature (eat some dirt, climb a tree, lie in the grass, plant a garden); not enough water (get a purifier so it tastes good); unhappiness (change jobs if you have to).
Of course, enhancing immunity is the opposite of all the above.
4. Your personal larder. Several yeas ago Polyface launched the larder campaign to help our customers eat better, cheaper, and more efficiently. At our house, we could eat for months from our larder. We have sweet potatoes, potatoes, hundreds of quarts of canned goods in the cellar, freezers full of sweet corn, meat, chicken broth and of course some ice cream.
Laying by is what all of our grandparents did; it was just part of the culture. Now we expect Costco to do it for us. If this whole pandemic does nothing more than re-institute the value of the larder, it will have been worth it. When a disruption throws everyone into a tizzy, that doesn't help our immune system, which needs to be calm, unworried, and positive.
What have I missed?