Here's my question: Can you starve to death

by not eating for one day?

I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure you can't. As a matter of fact, they used to call "not eating for a day" (or longer) fasting, and it was con- sidered a healthy thing to do occasionally, both physically and spiritual- ly. Not the near-death experience it's consid- ered today. People used to fast all the time, and some still do it today.

So why do the store shelves look like they've been ransacked by invading Visigoths when the TV weather crew says a snowstorm is on the way? Do people think they'll starve between Friday and Monday?

Maybe I'm the only one on the planet with this prob- lem, but there is no way I could put a morsel of extra food in our fridge or freezer. And it's not because I won the Powerball, or because I'm an out-of-touch million- aire who spends more money on food than I should. It's because that's what refrigerators and freezers are for: storing food. They are there so we don't have to run to the grocery store every single day, or every time some- thing unexpected happens.

Yes, plenty of people lack full-sized refrigerators and freezers, perhaps due to finances. But that's another issue. What I'm asking is, why does a place catering to people of means -- a store like Whole Foods -- get a run on bread after news of an impending snowstorm? It seems to me that a snowstorm would be a good time to empty out the freezer and the pantry, not cram even more into them.