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Comment by blihp | Hacker News Reader

The reality that many people buying it don't know how to cook, let alone bake. I'd bet that most of the people clearing out the baking aisles are doing so as an insurance policy (i.e. buy the raw materials now 'just in case' and learn how to use them later, if needed. Maybe, if they have kids they're baking some cookies.) The crisis will pass with the majority of the flour purchased just going bad.

Regarding driving down future demand: not likely more than in the very short term... flour has a fairly short shelf life. Have you ever used/tasted rancid flour? While it's not the end of the world, it's not something most people are likely to want use in a recipe more than once given a choice.

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> The reality that many people buying it don't know how to cook, let alone bake.

Based on?

> not likely

Again, based on what? Your intuition? You have some data correlating flour purchases with people unable to bake (and apparently unmotivated to use a search engine or read expiration dates)?

Storing flour in a sealed container extends its lifespan. Freezing it even more so. Anyone can easily learn these facts if so motivated.

Based on a lifetime of anecdotal evidence and the application of logic and common sense. Not everything in this world requires citing references and applying the scientific method.

Is a pig's ass pork? Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods? Gonna need some data and studies to back that up...

I really think there's a lot of stuff easier to prepare and of much better nutritional value you can put in a freezer (which generally only works until power runs out). But hey, let's buy 100lbs of flour and put it in a freezer because we can do that....

Baking is not some arcane skill. It's literally just instruction following. First time I baked it sucked. Second time it was great. The separation between the two was hours not weeks or months.

Listen, I don't want to over-generalize but I've seen this on the Internet about the most mundane of skills: cooking, baking, doing your taxes. They're all just instruction-following. Sure the upper limit on the skill level is high but basic competence to get a usable product on all of them is like at the level a twelve-year-old could do it if they had the motor skills.

Let alone bake? If you have a recipe that lists weights, which is easy to get, then it's pretty difficult to screw up baking.

Necessity is forcing many people to learn how to cook, bake, garden, clean, cut hair, etc.

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