Definition of Meals

How many meals popular class Haitians eat per day is commonly used as an indicator of food security. Haitians always score below the international ideal of three meals per day (CNSA/CFSVA 2007; CNSA 2013). But survey questions typically do not make it clear the definition of “meal.” And as Alvarez and Murray first pointed out 35 years ago, consuming food is not seen as a social event where the family or friends sit around a table and converse. Nor is there any Kreyol word that corresponds directly with the English word “meal.”  When talking about what outsiders would consider a meal, Haitians refer to manje (food) and “having eaten.”  Whether someone has indeed “eaten” depends on the type of food consumed at a particular time of day. Thus, eating a sweet food in the morning may constitute “having eaten,” but it would not qualify at noon when people in Haiti expect to have something that is not sweet, specifically manje sel (“salt food,” such as rice, beans, yams, plantains, meat).  Indeed, a frequent comment heard in Haiti at hours approaching noon is “I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” by which the speaker usually means, not that he has eaten nothing, but rather that he has eaten nothing salty (manje sel/salt food). [ii]

Culturally Appropriate Times to Eat

Putting aside what exactly constitutes a ‘meal’, popular class Haitians have five culturally appropriate moments during the day when they may expect to eat something. Each moment has corresponding foods, prevailing cooking methods, and place where the food is typically cooked and/or procured. Specifically the times are, 1) early morning, 2) mid-morning, 3) mid-day, 4) late afternoon/early evening and 5) before bed.

• Early morning food: not considered a “meal” in the Western sense of the word, often simply a beverage, such as heavily sugared coffee, chocolate or juice, often with bread
• Midmorning food: typically reported as a “meal” in the sense that, in the absence of this event, many Haitians will not consider themselves to have eaten at all, even if they have “snacked.” It is often purchased in the street or in front of schools.
• Mid-day food: a true meal in that the food is cooked, there is an ideal of balancing food groups, and it is considered a requisite event what all Haitians consider the major food consumption event of the day, it occurs between 12:00 and 3:00. The food is traditionally prepared by the household but as will be seen, it is increasingly becoming a street food (see endnote for additional clarification or Section 6 for review of food categories and rules governing the mid-day meal).
• Early evening food: almost always y purchased in the street—even in rural areas—and always fried
• Before bed food is almost always made at home and typically a porridge or liquid (cream of wheat, or juice)

The Syntax of Popular Class Haitian Food System

There are, clear food categories that Haitians recognize and speak of and I discuss them in detail below. But in understanding the food groups it helps to begin by describing how people in Haiti think about them and how I arrived at defining them. Findings from the research suggest that when categorizing foods, popular class Haitians tend not to emphasize food groups, per se. They are more apt to distinguish foods as ingredients in a dish or concoction (i.e. soup or bouyon), or as things eaten together (such as peanut butter and cassava). Exploring this point, the 49 randomly selected respondents who participated in Consensus Analysis survey conducted in Port-au-Prince, Gonaives and Cape Haitian were asked to categorize 92 foods into a total of 919 piles. For 805 (88%) of the piles, the respondents explained that they lumped the foods as ingredients of a single dish; in 7% of the cases they made piles of local vs. imported foods; and in only 4% of the cases did they sort by food family (Figure 1).[iii]

The highest level of inclusiveness in terms of what should be eaten together is the mid-day meal, what is arguably, as will be discussed shortly, the only true meal that Haitians eat. Using the mid-day meal as a guide, we can derive 7 major food groups: viv (starchy vegetables), legim (non-starchy vegetables), fey (greens), seryal (grains), vyann (meats), pwa (beans, which are so important as to constitute a group of their own), and fwi (fruits)—see Table 2. To this we could add other important categories that respondents do not readily assign to groups, specifically edible oil, sugar, alcohols, peanuts and cashews, chocolate, coffee, dairy products and eggs. We could use the latter categories to create a more complete food classificatory system, but we did not find popular class Haitians employing such an all-inclusive system of food categories.  More important is the system of rules governing food consumption–what foods should be eaten together, and when. (Annex 1 presents a more exhaustive look at these rules, including foods appropriate for secondary meals).[iv][v]

Food Rules

Table 2 demonstrates that popular class Haitians recognize the importance of a balanced meal. At a minimum, a meal must include a starchy vegetable or cereal, and some sort of oil-laden sauce—ideally with meat or fish, although vermicelli or a smashed non-starchy vegetable such as cabbage or eggplant will do. Anything less is not considered a meal. The next most important ingredients to improve or substitute for the sauce are beans, embedded in the cereal or pureed. The importance assigned to the bean cereal combination is itself powerful evidence for nutritional appreciation as they comprise of the least expensive and most readily available food combinations to obtain a complete source of proteins. Our observations suggest that any cereal with beans also qualifies as a minimal meal. [vi]

Examining what is considered the ideal mid-day meal demonstrates more clearly the value placed on a balanced meal. The ideal lunchtime plate should include at least one item from each category described in Table 2.  Specific rules govern which foods may appear together, which may be included in the meal, and how many foods from each group may appear. The main meal can have multiple viv but not multiple grains. It has either rice or millet or corn meal, but never a combination (as seen, for example, in US and European breakfast cereals). Nor are meats mixed (something common in the neighboring Dominican Republic where a national dish is a stew with seven types of meat). Bread is never present except as a base in ‘bread soup,’ an alternative to the main meal in Table 2 (see Annex).  Nor are peanuts or peanut butter ever included in a main meal. The meal never includes anything sweet other than juice–dessert is an elite concept that has not spread to the popular classes.  Discussed in detail shortly, sweets and other “snacks” are employed as inter-meal foods or on the go substitutes for other secondary meals. With respect to the mid-day meal, we can readily identify 22 such rules (see Table 3).[vii]  [viii][ix]

 

 

Respect for Organic and National Foods

The emphasis on a balanced main meal is central to the Haitian view of nutrition, but no account of consumption patterns and attitudes is complete without noting the emphasis and respect for natural foods, particularly (if not exclusively) those produced in Haiti.  Even though more than half of the national diet is derived from imports, Haitians overwhelmingly prefer local products. Some specific and common ethnographic illustrations of the point,

• Diri peyi (national rice), ji peyi or ji natirel (national juice or natural juice), poul peyi (national chicken), let bef (real cow’s milk)—these goods are revered for their flavor and perceived nutritional value.
• Haitians sometimes refer to imported chicken as poul pepe (secondhand chicken). and Imported fish is pwason pepe (secondhand fish).
• Local rice takes longer to cook than imported rice, and often contains small teeth-breaking pebbles, yet it is esteemed over imported rice and sells for as much as twice the price.
• Local chicken is blood brown, leather tough, and prepared with no formal hygienic controls. Yet it, too, often sells for twice as much as its imported counterpart—even in the elite supermarkets discussed in Section 8.
• Local eggs are inconsistent in size and color, and half the size of imported eggs, yet they traditionally sell for 50% to 100% more than imported eggs. The price differential has recently narrowed due to pressure on imported eggs, making them more expensive. Vendors who sell local eggs in popular neighborhoods still shout, ze peyi (“local eggs”) because they know many people are certain these eggs are healthier than imported ones. No vendor peddling imported eggs would ever broadcast that her eggs are not local. That could only dampen sales.

Haitian consumers often insist that local foods “have more vitamins” than counterparts from elsewhere– even vis a vis the neighboring Dominican Republic, even though they are grown on the same island and are almost always bigger and visibly more appealing.  When pressed, popular-class Haitians, not unlike developed world organic food advocates, explain, “It is because we do not use chemical fertilizers and pesticides.” The point came through powerfully in the consumer survey, in which 80% of respondents said they preferred local over imported produce in four categories (Table 4).

The appreciation and preference for local produce is also evident in the choices respondents made when asked to list the most nutritious foods. Foods identified as the healthiest tended to be crops most commonly grown in Haiti (see Table 5, above). This is true not only with adult foods, but also with preferred baby foods, which corresponded to those recommended by nutritionists and were often mixed with milk or fish (see Table 6).  [x]

Popular class Haitians’ remarkable understanding of nutrition and fortification can be seen clearly in a special category of nutritional concoctions called remontan, “rebuilding” juices. Remontan are best described as fortified folk beverages (Table 7). They include many of the ingredients seen in main and secondary meals described above, but their emphasis is on combining sources of high protein and carbohydrates.

Food Combinations and Awareness of Nutrition

Another set of foods eaten in association with the main meal illustrate how Haitian food consumption patterns are, as Alvarez and Murray put it, part of a socialization for scarcity.  The ‘rules’ associated with these foods result in a highly efficient means to consume maximum calories for minimum cost.

The Oil Rule: All food items that can absorb edible oils should be impregnated with as much oil as possible. Fat from oils is a critical component in the human diet. It is required for building cell membranes, and regulating hormone, immune, cardiovascular, and reproductive systems. The USDA recommends that daily calories from fat/oil intake not exceed 30% and not fall below 20% of total daily calories.  As seen in Table 8, low-income countries tend to dip beneath the recommended minimum, and Haiti is among them. The Haitian masses do not ingest large, unhealthy quantities of vegetable oils; they desperately try to get enough. Edible oil is also the most cost efficient source of calories: fats contain 9 calories per gram, alcohol contains 7, and cane sugar 4.  Thus, we find Haitian using as much oil as possible and as often as possible. Extra oil is not wasted. For example, oil is added to water to boil vegetables and then reused in the meat or vegetable sauce.^{[xi]  [xii] [xiii]‘}

The Sugar Rule: A similar rule holds for sugar, third in calorie content after edible oils and alcohol. Drawing on ethnographic observation, the rule is that most beverages—juices in the context of the main meal but also breakfast drinks coffee and chocolate–should be impregnated with as much sugar as they can possibly hold. They should also be consumed with bread, per calorie the least expensive form of carbohydrates available.

The Bean Rule: Grains should be impregnated with beans or consumed with highly digestible bean sauce. This is the most inexpensive and readily available source of protein in the Haitian diet.

The Fried Food and Spicy Coleslaw Rule:   All deep fried foods—whether meats, starchy vegetables, or dough—should be served with pikliz, a spicy coleslaw composed of cabbage, carrot, onion, shallot, red pepper, and juice from sour orange

Rule of Exclusiveness:  Grains, meats, and fruits are to be served one at a time, meaning not mixed with others of their kind.  Fruits are not mixed in juices (there are elite exceptions to this rule).  One type of grain, and one type of meat is included per meal. This rule also applies to snacks and sweets. Peanuts are not mixed with cashews to create a peanut-cashew cluster, nor are sesame seeds or coconut mixed with peanuts or any of other primary high oil content ingredient.  Each is the primary ingredient in a sugar aggregate that may include spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.

Rule of Water Chaser: No compendium of rules associated with popular class Haitian consumption patterns would be complete without mentioning that all foods should be followed by water.  With respect to the main meal, this is often true even if the person has drunk juice. With respect to lesser food consumption events, juice, soda or water may be consumed.  This rule is associated with a general appreciation for drinking as much water as comfortably possible. Some informants said they liked salted “snack foods” such as crackers, popcorn and cheese puffs “because they make me drink water.” [xiv]

The health and adaptive value of the rules

As Alvarez and Murray described, Haitian food consumption patterns appear to have evolved to assure maximum nutrition at the lowest possible cost in a harsh natural and economic environment. There also is great respect for local foods, to the point where what popular class Haitians consider to be highly nutritious appears linked to what is most frequently produced locally. Even with respect to imported staples, for the nutritionally stressed majority, the system is nothing short of remarkably well-adapted.

But all is not perfect. There are health costs for those who cling to the high-sugar, high-oil dietary strategies after experiencing an increase in income. Those who can afford to eat large meals more frequently and continue to ‘follow the rules’ face elevated risk of obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

Moreover, new imported foods, many of which are poor in nutrition, enter the diet in an almost chaotic and haphazard manner or are incorporated into the existing food categorization system in a way that gives them undue respect as a source of high nutrition. For example, different forms of pastas—all imported and which only became widely consumed in Haiti only during the 1970s, 1980s–are classified and function as entirely different foods. Spaghetti is treated as a breakfast food and is a main dish; vermicelli is treated like a meat and used as a core ingredient for sauces; macaroni is treated as a side dish, and mostly eaten only on Sundays and special occasions.  Similarly, salted crackers have entered the Haitian menu as “salted” food, and are thought of as nutritious and sometimes given to school children as a meal substitute. Before moving on, we attempt to provide some insight into how attitudes and perspectives on food among popular class Haitians change.

Conservatism

There are elements of the Haitian diet that might appear exotic to foreigners. Rural Haitians will eat almost any bird, except buzzards. Cat too is on the menu. But Haitians have many food taboos. They do not eat rats (57 societies on earth eat rat, including many West Africa), mongoose (eaten in neighboring Jamaica), snake (eaten in most non-Western and many Western), or dog (eaten in many Asian countries). Horse and donkey meat are traditionally taboo (commonly eaten until recently in France). All things considered, popular class Haitians are definitively conservative in their food preferences.

There are powerful social constructions that reinforce suspicions of foods. For example, a lingering, once common belief holds that cured hams are dead and dried children, another that people killed by magic may be turned into a cow or goat, slaughtered, and their meat sold at market. Sheep, common throughout Haiti are taboo and their consumption—they all get eaten—in what can only be called a cultural practice of widely accepted duplicity, they are slaughtered in secret and sold as goat, often (according to Alvarez and Murray 1981) with a goat head placed  next to the body parts to convince the skeptical purchasers. As Murray and Alvarez note elsewhere, fear of poison serves as a powerful limitation on begging. It also contributes to a general fear of new foods. Anecdotally, we can recount first-hand stories of high-protein gourmet foods presented as gifts to peasants, then found later concealed in a plastic bag and in discarded in a trash heap or the bush. The suspicion to unfamiliar foods extends to manufactured products. Sardines, for example, were long thought to be snakes and therefore rejected. Lentils introduced through USAID food programs in the late 1990s also were met with stubborn resistance. This skepticism represents a formidable obstacle to any marketer trying to introduce a new product.

Change

It is not possible to explain all underlying logic behind cultural food choices in Haiti and why food consumption patterns and preferences change, but there are obvious drivers. Cost and availability will, of course, figure into any analysis of how and why consumption patterns change. For example, the small size of the average Haitian farm (~1 hectare), means that few people own more than one or two cows, a demographic surely linked to the absence of cheese or yogurt production (both common in the neighboring Dominican Republic), i.e. there are not enough cows. Haitians generally do not consume goat milk, either, even though 80% of rural households own a goat. The absence of using animal milks commercially are arguably linked to the importance of breeding cows and goats, and to the animals’ role as a source of savings to meet school, medical and ceremonial expenses, i.e. rural Haitians are more interested in the value of breeding and obtaining offspring, which need the milk, than they are in drinking the milk themselves.[1]

An example of changing preferences documented during the course of the research is the erosion of the popular taboo against eating horse and donkey meat (mentioned above). Over the course of the past 20 years, this taboo has eased to the point where today horse meat is a commonly sold street food in the North of Haiti (so much so that farmers interviewed for this research complained of epidemic levels of horse rustling). The loosening of the taboo appears to be linked to a high rate of urbanization and, perhaps more importantly, a massive influx of cheap Chinese motorcycles that have diminished the importance of horses for transport. The acceptance of sardines into the Haitian diet is easier to explain. Sardines offer protein at exceptionally low cost, which has helped make them a staple for the poorest segment of the population, despite the suspicion that they are really snakes and the initial aversion to them.

There are numerous similar examples. Most popular class Haitians decided that lentils, given away as food aid for several years, tasted good enough to eat.  Hotdogs—a candidate to be anything, including the rounded body of a snake–have become one of Haiti’s most common street foods over the past two decades. They are inexpensive, easily stored and shipped, and typically impregnated with seven different preservatives—making them a super-meat in terms of shelf-life and resistance to heat and bacteria. They have largely replaced the traditional Haitian griyo–fried local pork—that was a ubiquitous evening street food as late as the 1990s. The decline of griyo may also be linked to the USAID sponsored eradication of the Haitian pig during the early 1980s and the resulting decline in the availability of pork. But the advantages of hotdogs in the face of urbanization might also help explain why pig re-introduction programs have largely failed in Haiti (i.e. the costs and benefits of producing pork vs. the cheaper hotdog).

Even bread has a story. Long a rare commodity, bread became a staple throughout Haiti after the US built a flour mill in 1957 and began giving international aid to the Haitian government in the form of wheat. Similarly, rice emerged as the ‘national dish’ only after the US government began sending heavily subsidized rice to Haiti as food aid.

The most important change for this study is another one that can be traced to urbanization and the need for convenient, ready-made, storable and shippable products. Until the 1990s, biswit–a hard bread or cracker commonly made in bakeries and sold in the streets—was a major snack food. But over the past two decades biswit has been supplanted by imported and packaged salted crackers. Packaged cookies, rarely seen during the 1990s, have cut deeply into demand for local, organic, and highly nutritional artisanal produced treats, such as peanut and coconut clusters (dous and tablet, discussed below). [xv] [xvi]

Conclusion

In summary, popular class Haitian are conservative in their food preferences, appreciation of quality, and reported fondness of natural foods, especially those produced domestically. But the limited resources of the majority of Haitians make them acutely sensitive to economic stress, and it is possible to get consumers to break food consumption rules in favor of less expensive and more readily available commodities. This is the engine of change. Thus, Haitians in the North of Haiti are eating horse meat, many Haitians eat “snakes” (sardines), lentils have entered the diet. However, more significant than any other point about changing diet, is that that, despite the profound appreciation for organic foods grown in Haiti, the market is being invaded with cheap processed foods, such as cookies and salted crackers, powdered milk, and processed cheese (see this article). As with the other changes in food consumption, the entrance and acceptance of low-quality food substitutes and snack foods is associated with underlying demographic and economic factors: specifically in this case, urbanization, accessibility and cost.^[xvii][xviii]

WORKS CITED

Alvarez and Murray, 1981Alvarez, M.D.Murray, G.F. Socialization for scarcity: Child feeding beliefs and practices in a Haitian village. United States Agency for International Development

Bailey, M., 2006 “Analysis of Market in Haiti for PL480 Title II Packaged Vegetable Oil” USAID Purchase No. 521-O-00-06-00079, August 2006

CNSA and WFP’s 2007 Analyse Compréhensive de la Sécurité Alimentaire et de la Vulnérabilité (CFSVA)

CRS Report for Congress 2007

FAO Stat 2000, 2001 2003

HLCS 2003, Living Conditions Survey (HLCS) was conducted in 2001 (IHSI/Fafo 2003)

Jensen, Helen 1990 Food consumption patterns in Haiti  Center for Agriculture and Rural Development. Iowa State University  Staff Report 90-SR 50

Katherine Harmon Courage | July 2, 2011 |   http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/07/02/whats-in-your-wiener-hot-dog-ingredients-explained/

USDA 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans

WHO (2009) World Health Organization,  Global and regional food consumption patterns and trends http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/3_foodconsumption/en/index3.html

NOTES

[1] Although in fact Murray and Alvarez [1981] mention goat milk consumption, we are not aware of any other examples, not in our own experience, nor the literature.

[i] The first international researchers to highlight the attention that popular class Haitians pay to nutrition were probably Alvarez and Murray (1981:162) when they made the ethnographically appropriate observation that “even many preteens can elaborate at length about the different nutritional value of cornmeal as opposed to millet, or goat meat as opposed to chicken”.  The work of Alvarez and Murray (1981) also highlighted that the prevailing food classification system among popular class Haitians was similar to that espoused by developed world nutritional science.

Much of rural Haiti is suffering nutritional stress, and one current body of opinion begins with the premise of nutritional ignorance on the part of peasants as an important cause of this stress. Our research findings simply do not accord with this guiding premise… The failure of the Haitian population to achieve nutritional wellbeing is not (sic) due principally to defects in local knowledge or belief, but to factors lodged for the most part in a deteriorating rural economy.                                               [Alvarez and Murray 1981: i]

[ii] Thus, while a bowl of cooked and salted potatoes would not constitute a meal in the US, if might qualify as such for some Haitians. None of the preceding should, however, be interpreted to mean that population class Haitians do not share the Western ideal of a “complete meal.”  As seen shortly, at least one daily nutritionally balanced food consumption “event‘’  is considered essential.

[iii] Alvarez and Murray (1981) identified food categories that closely resemble western categories with three principal categories of viv (starchy vegetables and cerereal, and pastas), legim (non starchy vegetables), and vyann (meats). In our own research we found similar, but not identical groups.  (as Alvarez and Murray did, as it appears to have been on the part of Alvarez and Murray themselves, as researcher seeking classification and order, rather than their informants).

[iv] Nor do Alvarez and Murray 1981, find that popular class Haitians have an all-inclusive food categorizations system. Alvarez and Murray take it upon themselves as researchers to complete the categories while admitting that the informants do not make such a complete categorization.

[v] With the exception that while Alvarez and Murray found their informants sometimes lumping grains with viv, the latter which they identified as ‘vegetables’, we found that they keep grains and viv distinct. We also identify viv as a sub category of vegetable—what we call ‘starchy vegetables’ vs. green vegetables—something that is arguably closer to the scientifically appropriate categorization than the US lumping of these foods into a single category of vegetable (green vegetables have little to do nutritionally with starchy vegetables such as potatoes, or plantains).

[vi] Observations from Alvarez and Murray (1981) support this point although they add that some respondents in their research community would consider a lone viv or grain as the bare minimum criteria for a meal.

[vii] In the following analysis, we try to make sense out of Haitian food categories and consumption by identifying local categories that make the most sense in terms of our own experiences and those of people we interviewed and developed. It is important to emphasize in organizing and understanding the data that we give precedence to local categories. Thus, some categories such as fried pork vs. fried beef and goat may appear identical and could best be lumped together, but the fact that Haitians make a clear distinction in the foods and their value prompted us to break them into distinct categories. In this example, fried pork is called griyo while Haitian lump fried goat and beef into the category of taso. Thus, we did the same.  See Annex 3 or more details

[viii]

[ix] Yet another type of rule that seems to be underpinned with nutritional logic is that traditional work parties –house-building, boat hauling and agricultural labor groups—must be provided with rum, the highest source of immediate food energy.

[x] The point can be taken to somewhat of an extreme in noting that the most commonly planted foods are also those present in Haiti for the longest time.

[xi]  According to the 2005 USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans, “A low intake of fats and oils (less than 20 percent of calories) increases the risk of inadequate intakes of vitamin E and of essential fatty acids and may contribute to unfavorable changes in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) blood cholesterol and triglycerides.” For children the recommendations are 25 to 35 percent.

[xii]   In a WHO (2009) summary: The richer a country the more fat its people consume.  Of the 24 countries found above the maximum recommendation of 35%, the majority of were in North America and Western Europe. The population of the only 19 countries on earth that consume an average of less than 15% fat in their diet were in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.  Much of the population of Haiti would fall in this latter group.

How FAO arrives at per capita consumption and how they arrive at recommended per diem fat consumption is beyond the scope of this report. It is be assumed that the prevailing methodologies are logical and sufficiently supported by academic research.

[xiii]  The best way to describe Haitian treatment of edible oil is ‘trying to inject as much oil as possible.

• The standard rice, beans and meat sauce illustrates the point. Meat, such as chicken, is first boiled in water and oil; when the meat is cooked they then fry it in oil. The original water together with the vegetable oil and the animal fat is not discarded but used to boil rice and or make bean sauce.  In both cases additional oil is added and before rice is completely cooked the chef will often wouzé (sprinkle) more oil on the rice, and then toufé (smoother) the rice (meaning seal the pot with a plastic bag) for the final  5 to ten minutes of cooking.
• Meat sauce takes the case even farther: literally swimming in oil, Haitian sauces  are best described not as meat, spices, and onions heavily embedded with oil but oil embedded as much as possible into the oil (point being that oil is the primary component)
• Treatment of spaghetti also supports the point. Haitians informants consistently said, “spaghetti  doesn’t like oil” (spaghetti pa reme luil). By which they mean that noodles will not absorb much oil.
• Eggs are literally drenched in a soup of oil;, doe (patay), sweet potatoes, bread fruit, plantains,  and pork are all deep fried in oil and are street and bus stop favorites in Haiti.

This lack of oil in the diet and attempt to inject as much as possible into food leads many observers—myself included before this research—to think that Haitians are getting too much oil in their diet. Bailey (2006:6) generalized this observation to conclude that, “Haitian cuisine traditionally makes a liberal use of cooking oil, especially for meat and fish products, well beyond the daily caloric intake requirement… as much as family income permits.”  However, as stated in the text, if USAID nutritional requirements can be accepted, the impoverished Haitian masses are best described not as ingesting large and unhealthy quantities of vegetable oils, but rather as desperately trying to get enough. Short of guzzling it—something that would present other gastronomic problems—the only way to do this is to saturate foods.

In summarizing, would warrant repeating that in contrast to the caveats of other Westerners who tend to be appalled by the copious amounts of oil used in the cuisines of impoverished Haitians, most Haitians are in much greater danger of not getting enough fats and oils in their diets rather than getting too much. Atherial Schlerosis and … are afflictions developed world afflictions associated with what is called the epidemiological transition—the transition from low life expectancies where people are killed by infectious and contagious viral agents –to one where people are long-lived by plagued by chronic diseases In Haiti heart disease is arguably an affliction of the successful few and overweight “big men” and marchann.

[xiv] The most recent break down on frequency of purchases and expenses that I could find, in order of important,

Frequency: Cooking oil, bread, rice, brown sugar, plantains, beans, tomato paste

Expenditures:  Rice, beans, cooking oil, plantains, bread

Source:  Jensen, Helen 1990 Food consumption patterns in Haiti  Center for Agriculture and Rural Development. Iowa State University  Staff Report 90-SR 50

[xv] Notable recent examples of change in availability of foods in Haiti are the dem­ise of the informal milk industry. People interviewed during the course of field work remember street vendors sold milk out of milk pails in the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, while a high esteem for local milk remained, the domestic milk industry disappeared during the 1980s. Another common food that has largely disappeared in the past two decades are ready to eat oranges. A common sight in front of schools in the 1970s to 1990s where male vendors selling oranges out of wheel barrows. The men skinned them so that only the tender and non-acidic white protective pulp remained and then sold them to school children.. Today mandarins (tangerines) are more common The source of the change in the domestic milk industry can be understood in the context of declining soil fertility, erosion, and the resulting lower milk yields ultimately leading to a replacement of domestic milk on the urban market with imported condensed and powder milks. The disappearance of oranges and emergence of the mandarin is related to NGO programs that promoted the planting of easily peeled and mandarins vs the traditional sweet oranges.

[xvi]  What’s in Your Wiener? Hot Dog Ingredients Explained   By Katherine Harmon Courage | July 2, 2011 |   http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/07/02/whats-in-your-wiener-hot-dog-ingredients-explained/

[xvii] The point cannot be gainsaid. Haitians are extremely nationalistic in there food preferences and, whether a derivative of patriotism or not, they tend to be highly idealistic in their appreciation for organic and natural foods. It should also be understood however, that they are just as extremely simplistic and conservative.  Contemporary main staples have been part of the diet for over two centuries. Indeed, many of the main Haitian staple foods were here during pre-Columbian times, such as sweet potatoes, manioc, cassava bread, peanuts, pumpkin, and corn. Even imported herring and cod have been around since colonial times (some argue are the foods that made long colonizing ocean voyages possible; see The Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky Walker).

[xviii] Food consumption patterns are governed by cultural specific rules. These rules have to do with nutritional combinations (such as the nutritional balancing of the main meal), cost and availability of products (as in the combination of sugar and bread and the saturation of with edible oil of any food stuff that will readily absorb it), and to the efficiency of preparation (as illustrated by trends such as pre-processed foods eaten in the morning and more elaborately cooked foods in at mid-day, fried foods in the evening, and boiled foods before bed).

Although to consummate such an analysis would require input from someone with deeper knowledge of nutrition than the authors, it is tempting, with all the examples of protein, carbohydrate and fat mixtures given above, to posit a guiding principal of nutritional efficiency in Haitian food: minimal mixing to obtain a sufficiently powerful combination of least expensive nutrients.