Diet of the New American Wasteland

## The New American Diet

The United States, before its dissolution, was a land of plenty. Its production capabilities were able to provide most with bountiful quantities of goods and property. Plentiful cars, homes, apparel, and baubles as vast as the imagination. No better was this evident than in America’s food production. By the mid-twentieth century, The United States had heavily industrialized its agriculture sector to produce huge sums of food to feed its population, and the world, many times over. Its crop yields were as diverse as the states that comprised the union. Corn and soybeans from the Midwest, citrus and sugar from the Gulf Coast, produce and nuts from the Southwest, and bountiful fish and livestock from its waters and herding grounds.
Of course, such an undertaking would carry a cruel irony. To give value to all of this food in a Capitalist society, it had to have exclusivity. Once food became a product, it had to be treated as less than mere sustenance. On a daily basis, perfectly consumable food was thrown away, and corporations criminalized sharing its bounty. Food scarcity for the American household became a growing problem throughout the final decades of late-stage capitalism.

Over the course of the twentieth, and into the twenty-first centuries, unregulated capitalism and global warming had begun to compromise this bounty. Frequent industrial accidents and pollution had poisoned America’s waterways and soil. Production of petroleum products to the point of saturation had infected the ground and the human race with microplastics. Industrialization steadily encroached on the habitats of North America’s wildlife, and over-hunting and deforestation had driven many species to extinction. By the time the American people began to see the signs and attempt to change its direction, civil unrest divided the union.

With the United States withdrawn from the majority of North America, its environmental institutions no longer had the authority to preserve what little was left. Now at the mercy of power-mad corporate authoritarians, and deluded theocracies, the landscape continued to grow barren. Toxic waste was disposed of with reckless abandon, and more species were wiped out, or no longer safe to cultivate. And the American people truly began to suffer for it.

### Ecological Collapse

Before the collapse of the United States, commercial food conglomerates had lobbied the federal government to continuously roll back environmental protections and labor regulations that once protected the environment’s integrity. Over time, these bribes allowed for corporations to cut corners, or infringe on protected land, all to keep building, to keep producing, and to keep the money flowing.
Growing cases of deliberate disregard for the environment were found in frequent pollution of vital waterways and land used for livestock and agriculture. Heavy metals and microplastics had leached into major river ways and lakes that communities relied on for their water supply. Year by year, another environmental disaster required yet another city or township to not trust their water supply, and the same applied to the wildlife that also lived in and around this water.

Now, the average isolated community can no longer rely on surface water sources, and must dig deeper wells to find untainted water tables and aquifers. Most major species of fish and amphibious mammals can no longer be safely consumed, due to lethal levels of metals found in the wildlife. Coastal fishing grounds for saltwater fish and shellfish had been over-hunted to the point of population failure, in most cases.

By the late 2020s, livestock once relied on to sustain the population, such as beef and poultry, were also tainted to the point where mass quantities had to be culled instead of used as food. Rampant diseases such as B.S.E. and Avian Flu made their meat unsafe to eat, and crop failures starved out what few herds remained. Current populations of cattle are kept in smaller quantities, and only the ultra-wealthy can afford their delicate care. Farm species of chickens have mostly died out, and now original leaner species of chicken are kept by the average InComs, requiring more care and protection.

When the meat supply began dying out, the agriculture sector was further exacerbated to grow more food that less of the population could even afford to purchase. Despite this, quotas were still demanded to be met, and crop plots were tilled to the point of rendering much of the land barren. Overgrowing crops had quickly exhausted nitrogen and fertilizer stocks that were no longer reliably supplied by a global market. Crop failures and dust storms became more frequent through the 2030s.

As civil institutions failed, many would-be survivalists resorted to hunting wild game. Despite plentiful wildlife, populations were wiped out alarmingly quickly by entire armies of venison hunters and small game trappers. Now, entire swaths of land in North America lay barren, devoid of any animal or vegetable. The few remaining viable plots for crops were also at risk, with the rising climate bringing about severe heat waves and wildfires. Over time, farmers simply abandoned their plots and sought safety as well. This would drive more of the compromised American people to population centers, benevolent or not.

### The Facade of Plenty

Despite the conditions of grocery stores carrying more food than any one family would ever know what to do with, in the times before the American Collapse, the perception of this food was little more than a carefully-orchestrated facade. The modern global supply chain relied on a right-on-time schedule for restocking food supplies. Much of the foodstuffs on shelves expired alarmingly quickly, and most usually either went to expiring donation drives, or were thrown away.
Even the breadbasket states such as California and Idaho were unable to provide for the massive influx of refugees that sought safety from the fundamentalists. By the end of the 2020s, climate disasters and disease had stricken the West as well. The entirety of California’s cattle was culled by the government as a stop-gap measure to use the land for more produce, further compounding the growing food and refugee crisis. Growing militia violence also compromised the safety of the migrant workers long-relied on to pick the crops all across America.

At the start of the plagues of the early 2020s, panic buying exhausted most store shelves, and the compromised supply chain took longer to restock the shelves. When full upheaval came about, the food also stopped coming. Canned goods were stockpiled by authorities to levy power, and food soon became a bargaining chip for groups such as the Dominion.

### What Little Remains

The groups that stockpiled canned and dried foods exhausted them alarmingly quickly, as more people grew hungry and desperate than could be bargained with. Shortages had already left less to hoard, and more of it was consumed by opportunistic groups of raiders and retreating government forces. The majority of canned goods that still exist are now sitting in federal or dominion ration stockpiles.
The Dominions have absorbed large stocks of packaged food from their people, and leverage their rations to their subjects to better assert their control. Starvation has been reportedly used as a weapon against the discontented populations within their controlled zones. They have also been reported to reward the “pious” with extra rations, in exchange for reporting any minorities or other political outliers the Dominions have been known to target during their purges.

The UN Peacekeeping Mission in the former United States territory has established distribution centers and limited supply lines for their convoys to deliver rations to the impacted civilians. The International Red Cross delivers shipments of dried grain and rice, and Peacekeeping forces issue MREs to the local populace on their humanitarian missions. Unfortunately, these centers are constantly attacked by fundamentalist groups and raiders, to hamper UN operations and undermine their mission goals, or to simply steal the rations for themselves.

### The Cost of Lost Oversight

The last recorded year of consistent supply restocks for most US states was in 2028. After that, only the most affluent of communities could afford the protection overhead to keep the trains and trucks moving. As time passed, the federal government left the American people behind in most of the country, leaving most at the mercy of either the Dominions, or corporations.
Packaged foodstuffs are continually produced by the corporations, but impacted food supplies forced manufacturers to supplement their canned goods with unhealthy artificial fillers, leaving little to be desired in the way of actual nutrition. These cans are produced with no regard for federal inspections, so little is left for safety standards or diligent seals on these foods. This canned food is prone to being infected with diseases not regularly feared since the nineteenth century, such as botulism.

### What Do Americans Eat Now?

With the advent of the Independent Communes, food production has been reverted to the local level. Communities and individuals must grow and cultivate their own food, reverting to a pre-Industrial agrarian society. Out of necessity, most of this food is grown and shared by those that live in said communities.
The Corporate States issue staple rations to their employees to sustain themselves, but it’s mostly low-nutrient filler staples such as instant grain or rice meals and high-sodium tinned “meat” and beans. On assembly lines and in the fields, nutrient-rich, poor-quality gruel is served daily as a rotational lunch meal by overseers.

Outside of the Corporate States (who still engineer their own seeds), organic seeds are used to grow crops throughout the traditional seasonal cycle. Crops such as root vegetables and leafy greens are produced to make up the new staple diet of majority produce. In some regions of the New American Wasteland, different species of mushrooms are cultivated for food, as well as pharmaceutical use in medicine and trade. Wild fruit such as berries are collected by gatherers as well, competing with remaining wildlife. Another major staple is the production of a frontier-era survival ration called pemmican, derived from dried meat and berries into an energy bar. In other tropical zones, sugarcane is also cultivated, both for consumption, as well as to produce post-supply ethanol for fuel.

Before the collapse of the United States, a growing invasive species had been swelling across the entire nation: Wild hogs. Domestic pigs from before the collapse escaped abandoned pig farms, joining the already growing populations, and reverted to different degrees of wild hog and boar within just a few generations. They have since become a new feature in the landscape of North America. Their populations number in the millions, and are so large that entire hordes have overwhelmed abandoned cities in the country. These hogs are hunted in droves, and have become the new staple meat in the American diet. However, these wild pigs are also rife with parasites and potential disease, and their meat has to be well-cooked before consumption to reduce the risk of contracting swine flu, E. coli, salmonella, and hepatitis, as well as parasites like trichinosis and leptospirosis.

Despite the Temperance values of the Dominions forced upon their subjects, alcohol has become a more important staple of the American diet to stay safely hydrated. Low-A.B.V. beers and spirits are brewed and distilled by InComs, corporations, and New States to avoid drinking contaminated water rife with diseases such as cholera , dysentery, and typhoid, similar to how alcohol was consumed by the majority of Europe during the Middle Ages throughout the Black Plague.

In more stable regions such as California, Texas and the US Remnant, cultivated meat has been well-received by respective governments to feed their people. The UCR has invested into Chinese development groups to build their own bioreactors, and Texas has sought to develop their own cultivated meat industry, allowing the nations to provide staple meats untainted by environmental impact. Despite skepticism, the foodstuffs are well-received by the majority of Californians and Texans, especially after climate disasters have impacted or eliminated existing populations of meat and fish.