Cross-Cultural Blog

Aya Aboul Fotouh
Dania Ghoniem
Jailan Al-Sharif
Samantha Devinck
RHET201
Stanford blog project

How much processed food does the population eat?
How much processed food do you have access to?

When I conducted some internet research on the amount of processed foods that the Egyptian population ate, I found out that the results varied depending on the item consumed. For example, the percentage of Egyptians that consume processed vegetables witnesses an increase of 20% each year. Despite this increase, there are still many people struggling to obtain vegetables due to government regulations and policies that affect vegetable prices, which are in many cases for the disadvantage of the Egyptian citizens. In terms of tomatoes, Egypt primarily relies on its domestic production of fresh tomatoes. However, the harvesting of tomatoes has been affected due to poor handling and packaging, which reduced the available amount of tomatoes for Egyptians. Despite there still being prolific amounts of tomato, yet Egypt imports tomato sauce. As for milk, the majority of Egyptians receive fresh milk, yet the few Egyptian businesses that are involved in dairy processing import dried, skimmed milk. Researching about these facts made me consider how much processed foods I eat on a daily basis. I'd say that I eat some processed foods such as baked chicken. However, I consume fresh vegetables, such as broccoli, which I preserve in a refrigerator and not a freezer. I also consume fresh fruits, depending on the season such as oranges, apples, bananas, and watermelon. I am very grateful for the fact that I am capable of affording fresh fruits and protein foods such as meat, in addition to fish and chicken. In Egypt, many of its citizens cannot say that are as fortunate. Many poor families sleep at night worrying whether they will have enough money in order to buy some vegetables the next day. Thus, many families end up only affording to buy rice and macaroni as inflation continues to progress and affects all food areas, primarily meat and chicken. Since the poor cannot afford to pay for these "luxurious" foods, their diets consist of sources of fat, which leads to many of them becoming victim to diabetes. Furthermore, it is the custom of many families during Islamic religious holidays such as Ramadan (month of fasting till sunset each day), Eid el Fitr (celebration after Ramadan), and Eid el Adha to provide food for those in need. Those in need look forward to receiving the foods that they cannot afford and do not eat during most of the year. Finally, one point I would like to note and I think is interesting to consider is that since the wealthy class can afford foods that the poor cannot afford, many from the former group are constantly dieting. The profession of dieticians is widely popular in Egypt, and many of those who can afford a vast variety of different foods visit these dieticians in order to lose weight. Recently, during the past couple of years, many from the middle class can be found at different diet clinics. However, the same cannot be said for those of the poor class. All in all, Egypt over the past 6-8 years has gained awareness of the dangers of unhealthy food and how they affect one's health. Thus, more citizens are being cautious when it comes to what they eat.

What is going on now with the bread shortage?

Half of the population lives on less than 1 dollar a day; prices have been constantly increasing while salaries are still constant. While poverty increase and difficulties to buy food are increasing, more and more people are turning to subsidized bread. The government then struggles to meet this increase demand and it becomes the target of extreme anger and incomprehension from the population. The problem is that Egypt cannot afford to subsidize bread as this is more costly to them then the national budget of health and educational system! Approximately 50 million Egyptians rely on subsidize bread every day. Bakeries cannot provide enough bread to the increasing population who needs it. Therefore, people begin to queue for bread at 3am. As people wait for such a long time, frustration and stress come along leading to fights and even death. In February, a man was shot dead in a quarrel over a place in a bread queue. Another lady was deathly stabbed outside a different bakery. Moreover, witnessing people dying of heart attacks while waiting in the queue under terribly high temperatures happens very often. Also, due to high food prices many families eat a meal a day and this meal is mainly composed of bread. If bread is not available then what is left for those people to live on? As things are going bad, Egyptian president Mubarak ordered police and army to bake bread for the starving population but it is not enough as they fulfill only 1% of the population needs. Moreover, the government enlarged the list of bakeries or stores who could receive subsidized bread which helped in the availability of bread to the poor. The bread queues have decreased but the prices of all other food are still very high so the problem is actually very far from being solved.

History of bread subsidization:
Subsidized bread today represents a huge problem in Egypt. Its shortage has led people to queue for it at 3:00 am. 45% of the population lives under the poverty line and hence survives on subsidized bread. The government started subsidizing staples, mainly bread and rice, right after World War II. Then when Abd EL-Nasser's government overthrew the monarchy, subsidies where heavily relied on in maintaining social order and promoting a socialist economic model. In 1977, there was an attempt to cease bread subsidy; one which was highly faced by riots. Consequently, the bread subsidy persisted. More reserves are being spent today on bread subsidy than on health or education. However, acquiring bread remains a brutal affair because of the highly inflated prices of food that accompanied the rise in oil price. This increase in prices of staples forced more people to rely on subsidized bread and drove the demand up. While 50 millions loaves of subsidized bread are needed to cover the demand, only 2.5 million loaves are produced daily.