The soup kitchens and food pantries where you often find a bland yet nutritious, filling and inexpensive meal have been serving increasingly smaller portions over the last several months. At first you and many of your fellow poor and homeless assumed that it was because of poor harvests on the surrounding farms, but the amount and quality of fresh food available in even the least prosperous markets has remained unchanged.
Now, not only has the quantity diminished, but the quality as well. Even in the worst of seasons, the fruits and vegetables have been edible. A few soft spots here and there were to be expected, but overall the food donated to aid the poor was the same that any common housewife would purchase in the market. In recent weeks, however, produce has been more rotten than edible, butter has been rancid, bread has been moldy, flour has been full of weevils and meat, eggs and milk have been non-existent.