I am Thankful .......

I noticed a significant drop in the number of visitors to my site and the numbers of comments left over this last weekend. I wondered at first, why this was so. Then I realised that this was the Super Bowl XLII weekend in the United States. I do not know much about American football but it seems the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots.

I once watched the Canadian version of the game with a fan who was trying to explain to me why grown men get dressed and padded up to beat each other into a pulp over a ball. I remember most of the time, the game reminded me of two rams clashing horns and doing brain damage. I was also perplexed by the large number of times the referee/umpire blew the whistle. My friend explained that this whistle was for "offside", that whistle was for "stepping out of bounds" and the next whistle was for "movement at the back end" .....how fascinating. Then, another whistle and to my query, my friend replied,"Oh, that's the break for TV commercials." I have to say, I have never come across a game that is played to the timing of TV commercials.

Anyway, I digress. I wanted to highlight that Super Bowl Sunday is second only to Thanksgiving for the amount of food consumed. Here are some statistics from Associated Content : -

Americans consumed 15,000 tons of chips or equivalent of six feet of chips per American. Even though popcorn is almost as light as air, 5,000 tons was consumed; enough to make a popcorn string long enough to go round the world more than 5 times. 12 million pounds of avocado went into making 8 million pounds of guacamole. Approximately USD 55 million was spent on food for that day.

Interestingly, anti-acid sales on the following day at 7-11 outlets will go up by 20% and 6% of working Americans will call in sick on Monday.

The title of my post is "I am thankful....". I am thankful because this same weekend, I learnt about a very different food consumption story and I am just thankful that I do not have to eat mud pies.

I remember making mud pies when I was very young as a play activity and we would pretend to eat mud pies. It really upsets me to learn that for some people in the world, mud pies has become all the food that they can afford to eat on a daily basis.

I refer to the situation in Haiti where crop failures and inflation has forced many people to rely on mud pies because they can no longer afford the normal staples. Mud pies are made of dirt taken from a central plateau region, mixed with water, salt and vegetable shortening. The batter is shaped into thin biscuits and dried in the sun. Even the price of the dirt has gone up and costs USD 5 for enough to make 100 mud pies. The price of a mud pie or cookie at the market is only 5 cents as compared to 60 cents for 2 small cups of rice.

Let's be clear, this phenomena has arisen out of desperation amongst the poor of Haiti. Eating mud pies provides barely any nutritional value at all but it does help stave off hunger. People who eat it are likely to suffer other problems like stomach pains and in the longer term malnutrition. I hope that the world will wake up to the tragedy unfolding there and in so many parts of the world and act to end the disparity between those who have food to waste ( I get really annoyed at the wasteful food pranks on MTV Spring Break programs) and those who are resorting to feed themselves and their children dirt.

Can we stand by and allow food to be diverted from feeding fellow humans and set it aside to create biofuels to run our cars? What do we tell them? Sorry? Our cars got to eat too? The USD 55 million spent on junk food for a single Super Bowl Day could have bought 183 million cups of rice which would have been enough to feed every Haitian for almost a fortnight.

The famous saying attributed to Queen Marie Antionette of France, "Let them eat cake." , comes to mind. It has often been quoted to demonstrate her callousness and her lack of understanding or perhaps concern about the plight of the common people. I hope that our current generation will be judged similarly for allowing the Haitian people to "eat dirt".

I am thankful......that I have never needed to eat mud pies. Aren't you?

The hand of a woman is covered in mud as she makes mud cookies on the roof of Fort Dimanche, once a prison, in Port-au-Prince, Friday, Nov. 30, 2007. Rising prices and food shortages threaten the nation's fragile stability, and the mud cookies, made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening, are one of very few options the poorest people have to stave off hunger. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)