Poverty Food asks the question, is the consumption of food a pleasure or a torture?
I recently saw a program on CNN on the fattening of girls in Mauritania, one of the poorest countries on the planet. The fattening practice is centuries old in this western African nation. A young woman who is thin or normal sized by western standards is considered not only un desirable by men in some parts of Mauritania and therefore, difficult to marry off, but she is also considered unloved by her husband if she is married. In Mauritania, many men, particulary in more rural areas, want to marry a plus sized girl and keep her that way through their married life. "In Mauritania, a woman's size indicates the amount of space she occupies in her husband's heart," said Mint Ely, head of the Association of Women Heads of Households" in an article from the Guardian in 2009. A large sized girl is so highly prized, that mothers will conduct the force feeding of their own daughters. The punishment for not drinking the fat rich milk, a staple fattening drink, or to be constantly consuming food, is to have another woman crush the child's feet between two wooden poles. And if the girl simply can't stand it any more and vomits, she must also consume the vomit. Sound unbelievable?
Fortunately, this practice is not widespread in most of Mauritania but it is feared that it is making a comeback. Across the atlantic, in the USA, this kind of treatment of a child, both the force feeding torture and the foot crushing torture, would be flat out considered child abuse and prosecuted. We look at it and say, "how barbaric"! Yet, are we really so different? How many people allow their children and themselves to consume food almost non-stop? It may not be force feeding, but it is permission to over feed with the same disasterous results. It may not be torture but can it be considered a kind of violence to the body to over consume? For many of us anything that interrupts our constant snout-in-the-feed-bag-lifestyle is the real torture.
What do you think? Do you really need to eat an 16 ounce steak when you go out to eat? Must something like a hamburger or sandwich have to weight two pounds? Does anyone really have a thirst that can only be quenched by a Big Gulp? As one Mauritanian woman recalled in an interview from CNN, "My mother started fattening me forcibly when I was 13-years-old. She used to beat me to eat more oiled couscous and fat lamb's meat. Each time I thought my stomach would explode." A lot of people in the first world feel like that all the time! And we still go back for more.
1 comment:
Did you notice how quickly you transitioned from outrage at people who force girls to eat more than they want to a voice that wants to compel people to eat less than they want? In both cases, the controlling voices believe they know what is best.
I can't do anything for Mauritania, but in the US I try to speak up for respect of other people's intelligence coupled with respect for their right to eat what they want. It is completely insufferable the way some people judge what other people eat with such scorn and venom. I eat all sorts of foods. Sometimes I feast on a huge steak. Sometimes I nibble on a 4-ounce fish filet. Sometimes I eat beans and rice. But whatever I eat, I choose it myself. I try to use the sense God gave me to eat wisely over time, I give thanks for the opportunity to feast on lavish foods in celebrations of my own choosing, and I try not to abuse the gift of my body by consistently overfeeding it. The bottom line is, I eat what I choose, and I don't think anybody needs to judge what I eat or what anybody else eats.
I really appreciate information about wise eating or skillful food preparation. I completely deplore judgmental comments about what anybody eats. I am incensed that our First Lady feels that she can attack people over their food. I am outraged that a government like New York City tells people what they can and cannot buy.
Let there be freedom of food.
Post a Comment