Currently there is over a 40 percent incidence of obesity, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes in the United States and numerous other countries who eat the modern Western diet. My goal was to prevent type 2 diabetes. To do that, I must prevent prediabetes and obesity. These conditions are caused by your diet. I developed the common maintenance diet to be a lifetime diet to keep the family healthy. The food engineer - the person who buys the food, makes the menu, prepares and serves the food - is the key to success, and I have given much advice to this person.

I now realize there is an increased possibility of food shortages occurring. The maintenance diet may not be enough. This book explains the changes that may have to be made in the diet if this occurs. Now my goal is to keep the family from getting hungry and to modify the common maintenance diet to reflect food conditions.

As in the Great Depression, our diet will change. The government will probably be able to keep people from starving, but there will be shortages.

I will advise the food engineer how to adapt to these new conditions with the goal of keeping hunger to a minimum while keeping the general recommendations for a good diet intact. This is not a book about survival, but rather how to adapt to food shortage. I will explain the drivers of hunger in your body and how best to reduce them. Children will require a different diet than adults. Despite food shortage, we may still need to prevent and treat obesity.

I cannot accurately predict the details of what may happen, and I hope there never is a global food shortage, but many would agree that possibility is higher now than it was a few years ago.

There are many books about survival, and some have taken to keeping a year's supply of food. I am not necessarily advising that, but rather how to compose a diet with what food you have. You probably will have some food as the government will not allow widespread starvation, but like the Great Depression, your diet will change.

The food engineer worries about this and I hope to be able to give some advice that will help her.