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The only essential item I have not seen at all in the grocery stores, not even intermittently, is yeast. Fortunately I still have half of a large bulk package of yeast I got a while ago at Costco, and it lasts a long time in the refrigerator.
You can google to read about why there is a yeast shortage.
Otherwise, I'm finding virtually everything I need and normally buy. No rye flour, but I can make do with white and whole wheat. Rice and pasta are plentiful. Costco had a huge pallet of toilet paper when I was there earlier this week, and people were not grabbing it like they were in the past.
I don't buy hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, bleach, Lysol etc. so I can't speak to whether those are available.
Some stores by me are low limiting one box per shopping trip. but at another store there was no limit. Dollar tree sells pasta too if you can't get any at your local supermarket.
I noticed it in Tucson, AZ. Sometimes the shelves are almost empty except for specialty pastas which are pricey. Other times it seems like normal. Now I am spending the next few months in a smallish town in Oklahoma. Just about everything is fully stocked. Pasta, toilet paper, you name it. I guess if you go through the yearly threat of tornadoes, you have better perspective on things like pandemics.
I live outside of Tucson. I do not know what it is but the level of hoarding in this area is pretty bad. When everything broke in early March, I was back home in Ohio for my father's 90 birthday party. For the most part, grocery stores were pretty well stocked (except for TP) and people were generally buying in reasonable quantities.
On the drive back, a drive that took eight days due to a medical emergency, I was receiving texts and calls from friends and neighbors telling me how bad the grocery stores were and how the stores were not keeping it up. Fortunately, the allowed me to buy a few things in Cincinnati that I knew I needed. I also stopped at El Paso to pick up produce. That was a good decision as many stores did not have much supply here.
It seems that there is a certain portion of the population in this area who are glues to CNN and if they hear anything, they run down to the markets and stock up. I know of people who rarely cook that look like they are buying groceries for a family of eight. Meanwhile, we are experiencing difficulty this week getting meat.
If this becomes an annual occurrence, I think that I will consider relocating back closer to home where they are not experiencing this anti-social behavior.
Other than TP and cleaning wipes and sanitizer, our area has had what I think of as "rolling shortages". One week there's no bread, then no pasta, next week pasta is back and Campbell's soup, or any soup, is all gone. Other times it's chicken, or pork. Next time it's frozen pizza. It makes no senses, other than some sort of trucking issue.
Glad that pasta is one thing my family eats less, maybe once a month. Eat more veggies and meats avoid processed starch. With so much rain on the East Coast my garden is growing well with kale, lettuce, and tomatoes.
For the Bertolli pasta sauces, the it seems like only ones that I can seem to find occasionally are the original Alfredo and the Alfredo with Basil.
Interesting that one person seems to only find angel hair for pasta. While we rarely buy angel hair (our preference is usually thin spaghetti), regular spaghetti seems to be readily available while the thin seems to be in short supply around here.
Also, one style of cut that has become less common in the past several years even before the pandemic is vermicelli. Vermicelli is thicker than angel hair, but thinner than thin spaghetti.
The first couple of weeks (during the toilet paper shortage) there was a run on pasta. Now that things have settled down a bit you can get just about any type of pasta you want. Rice seems to be available in most stores now as well. I'm planning on making some white beans this month but haven't really been looking at that supply situation; hopefully I can grab a bag.
I know that it might sound unbelievable but you can make your own sauce using tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, onions peppers, etc. It is quite easy and generally better than the bottled sauces.
Serious....??? You’re gonna try and be sarcastic............so everyone is out buying everything in the store in a panic buy and you go in a store and ALL the shelves are bare, there is a line with 100 people all stressed and you’re gonna find all the needed ingredients to make fresh pasta sauce for 1/2 of a shopping cart full of pasta.
I know it might sound unbelievable but.....we’re not talking about regular normal times where you have the luxury AND availability of not only the ingredients, but you can pick and choose the ingredients to make your own pasta. Not to mention you can wait for sales, have coupons, can ask the produce guy to get you fresh whatever etc. What world are you living in? Because when I went....the shelves were pretty bare. With the exception of a few pears the produce and fruit displays were B A R E
People were buying ANYTHING that was food. I saw a guy who had 8 bottles of salad dressing. No salads. Lady had a cart full of milk. Hell I estimated about 30 gallons of milk. Where EXACTLY are you gonna put 30 one gallon bottles of milk before they spoil? . Another guy has a cart full of meat. All kinds. No rhyme or reason. I guarantee you that guy didn’t have enough bread pasta or whatever helper to cook all that meat. . I remember there was two boxes of crackers. I grabbed them and looked up and this lady was saying honey grab some crackers. Guy looked at me. I said here want one. And handed it over. No big deal.
People were simply panic buying anything. You do understand what the meaning of the word panic and buying means?
Last edited by Electrician4you; 05-01-2020 at 06:55 PM..
Other than sales, I wonder if many stores no longer carry vermicelli pasta to avoid confusion with the Asian-style noodles of the same name. Many people associate vermicelli with being rice noodles, even though Italian-style pasta with the same name exists.
Interestingly, in Italy vermicelli is actually thicker than spaghetti. Here in the United States, vermicelli falls in between angel hair and thin spaghetti.
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......so everyone is out buying everything in the store in a panic buy and you go in a store and ALL the shelves are bare, there is a line with 100 people all stressed and you’re gonna find all the needed ingredients to make fresh pasta sauce for 1/2 of a shopping cart full of pasta. 