The food supply in the United States truly is a luxury. Many of eat out several times a week and there is so much to choose from on the menu it often takes the waiter two or three trips to your table before your ready to order. When shopping at the grocery store, the shelves are always stocked and I have heard that you should not shop on a hungry stomach, otherwise you buy more than you really need. In addition, there is food available for gluten free diets, lactose intolerant diets, vegetarians, vegans, and of course those of who will eat just about anything. We are truly blessed to live in a country where we have so many food choices, and this is due to the abundant and safe food supply provided by America’s farmers and ranchers and a relatively high standard of living in the U.S. compared to other countries. As consumers in the U.S., we spend just 10% of our disposable income on food. To put this in perspective, it takes 40 days for most Americans to earn enough disposable income to pay for their food consumed at home and away from home for the entire year (it takes over 100 days to earn enough money to pay for federal, state and local taxes each year).

The fact that we have so many choices at relatively low costs should not be taken for granted. An intricate system takes the goods produced on farms and ranches and transforms them into many of the different foods that we see in the grocery store (i.e. canned goods, boxed cereal, etc.). Even those items not processed, like fresh fruits and vegetables, must travel through a marketing chain before they arrive at a grocery store or restaurant. Anytime there is a malfunction in this chain of events, there can be consequences. I still remember they day the entire dairy case at my local grocery was empty and there were signs apologizing for the inconvenience. We are lucky that this type of event does not happen frequently. Next time you visit your local grocery store or favorite restaurant remember how fortunate we are to have so many choices.