The UK is “rationing” vegetables…& it’s all about normalization

OffGuardian

Kit Knightly

The past few days have seen certain fruits and vegetables “rationed” by major UK supermarkets. Aldi, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have all put limits on customer purchases of peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Just yesterday, Lidl added their own name to that list.

Many – including Justin King, former Sainsbury’s CEO – have jumped at the chance to lay the blame at Brexit’s feet.

But that doesn’t make much sense, since Morrocco – whence the UK imports a lot of salad vegetables – obviously isn’t in the EU. Further, Ireland has been affected too, plus we’re only 5 months removed from France (and other EU nations) facing their own “catastrophic food shortages”

The other side of the Brexit divide is firmly set on blaming any shortages on the weather. Of course, that’s also helpful to the establishment narrative since the “bad weather” angle can be swiftly and easily parlayed into discussions about climate change. In fact, it already has been.

The real reason there are shortages – supposing there are real shortages, not just psy-op nonsense like the toilet paper fiasco at the beginning of the “pandemic” – is that, one way or another, they have been engineered.

The cost of producing, harvesting and transporting all crops has spiked because the cost of oil and gas was deliberately inflated. The cost of growing crops has increased because there is a “shortage” of fertiliser – likewise purposefully created.

Both of these are “blamed” on the war in Ukraine, but the war but both the energy crisis and fertiliser crisis predate the war in Ukraine (see here and here). We covered this in detail last spring when “food shortages” first hit the headlines.

Speaking of Ukraine, it’s currently easier to get tomatoes in war-torn Kherson than in London. That’s the reality we’re being presented with.

In short, the rationing is just another narrative that doesn’t make internal sense. It’s due to Brexit but isn’t. It’s due to the weather, but not everywhere. It’s a in some stores and not others and apparently in some places but not others and apparently only affecting major supermarkets.

According to one farmer, these supermarkets could make up the shortfall in imports by buying domestically grown produce, but are refusing to incur those costs. Further evidence that the food shortage narrative must be serving a purpose.

And all the while empty shelves and rationing are being normalised.

Neil Oliver nailed it in his most recent monologue:

They’re rationing tomatoes in the supermarkets. We’re told it’s about supply chains, bad weather and the price of heating, but right now, in terms of the messaging, I suspect it’s more about pushing the word – rationing. Less about any believable shortage of food and more about getting us used to hearing the word.

No doubt, if experience is anything to go by, the rest will come later. My money says the rationing app for our smartphones is already sitting on a hard drive somewhere, ready when we are.

For now, it’s more of a familiar process of psychological manipulation. Get us acquainted with the general idea of food scarcity so that we’re well-primed when the planned reality is unrolled.

We were given the same treatment with words like “lockdown” and “pandemic”, “mandate” and “denier”. Nudge, nudge. Rationing is a word from our parents’ and grandparents’ generation, a bit like “War in Europe” and “Fascist” and now they’re back in fashion once more. Rationing, I ask you, while the landfills swell with fresh food dumped every day.

That’s all it’s about. And it is carefully calculated.

Just as Roald Dahl is the first little taste of retroactive censorship – made acceptable by both his controversial legacy and the fact he wrote for children – this is the thin end of the rationing wedge. It’s just tomatoes, after all. No hardship is it?

And yet the head of the UK’s Farmers Union said it would likely get worse, calling it “the tip of the iceberg” (he wasn’t even making a lettuce pun, which is an awful wasted opportunity).

Maybe we should all eat insects or lab-grown paste instead of importing vegetables, amiright?

Original Article: https://off-guardian.org/2023/02/28/the-uk-is-rationing-vegetables-its-all-about-normalization/