Re: Haitians trick empty bellies with dirt cookies

On May 3, 4:41 am, bodhi <psychedelictour...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Haitians trick empty bellies with dirt cookies
Rising food prices forcing many poor to desperate tactic

 By Jonathan M. Katz
Associated Press / January 31, 2008

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst
slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.

With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily
plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional
Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt
from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been used by pregnant women and children here as an
antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the
oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby,
five siblings, and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt,
and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

"When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times
a day," Charlene said. Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her
lap, looking even thinner than the slim 6 pounds, 3 ounces, he weighed
at birth.

Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies
also give her stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems
colicky, too," she said.

Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher prices for
oil, which is needed for fertilizer, irrigation, and transportation.
Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up
sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring
food markets as well.

The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean, where island
nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40 percent in places.

The global price increases, together with floods and crop damage from
the 2007 hurricane season, prompted the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several
other Caribbean countries. Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit
last month to discuss cutting food taxes and creating large, regional
farms to reduce dependence on imports.

At the market in the La Saline slum, a two-cup portion of rice now
sells for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a
year ago. Beans, condensed milk, and fruit have gone up at a similar
rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past
year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the
cookie makers say.

Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared
with food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less
than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Merchants truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to the La
Saline market, a maze of tables of vegetables and meat swarming with
flies.

Women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places such as
Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town.

Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the
former prison for which Fort Dimanche is named, they strain out rocks
and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. Then they pat
the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching
sun.

The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the
streets.

A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency
and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the
tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.

Assessments of the health effects are mixed. Dirt can contain deadly
parasites or toxins, but can also strengthen the immunity of fetuses
in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an
immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied
geophagy, the scientific name for dirt-eating.

Haitian doctors say that depending on the cookies for sustenance risks
malnutrition.

"Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage
it," said Dr. Gabriel Thimothee, head of Haiti's health ministry.

Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven
children. Her family also eats them.

"I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating
these," she said. "I know it's not good for me."

-------------

namaste;
bodhihttp://psychedelictourist.blogspot.com

hay Haitianz are steal duh reciepee frum Wendy an Mck-D.
.

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