Dirt Cookies

[Papewaio]

Haiti's poorest reduced to eating dirt

Mud cookies - made from dirt, salt and vegetable shortening - have become popular among Haitians desperate to stave off hunger, the Associated Press reports.

The cookies - which are occasionally used by pregnant women and children as an antacid and source of calcium - have become a regular meal.

Seventy-six per cent of the population lives on less than $2.25 a day, and 55 per cent live on less than $1.13 a day.

The mud cookies sell for around five cents each, compared to 60 cents for two cups of rice.

The photos of hundreds of dirt cookies that are made are incredible.

Amazing what people will do to survive, and also amazing that given their poverty they keep bringing in kids into the world. Haiti has almost the same population as neighbouring Dominican Republic, but only half the area and 20% of the per capita GDP.

Inspirational or straight Pathos?

[Peasant Phill]

There has always been a correlation between the relative income and the number of children. Just look at how the number of children have declined in the rich west since the beginning of the last century. I believe the reason lies in security. More children mean more mouths to feed but also more potential providers for the rest of the parents lives. There are probably more things working here, it would be nice to get a academic answer on this.

On the dirt eating:
It's a shame that people have to live like that but, at the risk at sounding cynical, Haïti is hardly the first and won't be the last example of this.

[Vladimir]

I heard that Haitians mark their border with a line of feces. Eating dirt, sex with chickens, and other acts don't surprise me.

[CrossLOPER]

I heard that Haitians mark their border with a line of feces. Eating dirt, sex with chickens, and other acts don't surprise me.

DevDave, is that you?

[Rameusb5]

Does it strike anyone else but me as being fundamentally wrong that people who live on an island are so starved for food?

The Hatian government must be a total joke.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Haiti's poorest reduced to eating dirt

Can't they eat cake instead then?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Sorry, that was in bad taste.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Then again, not as bad in taste as mud.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

*tries to avoid warning points for poking fun at the dirt poor by diverting attention away to these interesting photographs of Haïtians baking their rather amusingly named 'tablettes d'argile' - clay tablets.

[Papewaio]

Mudcake actually is healthy in comparison.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

My mom has started going there to teach women how to quilt, and hopefully get them jobs as quilters, and she says it's really baaaad. I can't say I'm very surprised by this, though it is hard to believe it's actually better than nothing.

[KukriKhan]

I heard a distant bell ringing with this story. Finally found the one I remembered from a year ago.

From soil in Haiti, hopes for antibiotic

With doctors increasingly worried about "superbugs," deadly infections that can defeat most known drugs, a small Cambridge biotechnology firm has won $70 million in venture capital money to develop a powerful antibiotic from a microbe discovered in Haitian dirt...

..."You've got the Darwinian battle going on under the ground in Haiti," said Targanta chief executive Mark Leuchtenberger . "Somehow, this became the don't-mess-with-me microbe."

I'm NOT saying "Forget about the poverty dirt cookies.". Those conditions are deplorable, and it's outrageous that anyone in our own hemisphere has to resort to such drastic measures, when there is such opulence all around.

But, maybe there's a bio-chemical reason that such a menu doesn't kill the "diners" over time.

[gibsonsg91921]

In the great depression, people in Hoovervilles ate clay cookies, similar to this. This is the origin of the perjorative "cracker," or at least one possible origin.

[Vladimir]

In the great depression, people in Hoovervilles ate clay cookies, similar to this. This is the origin of the perjorative "cracker," or at least one possible origin.

In Georgia it referred to the cracking of a whip.

[gibsonsg91921]

Yeah, that's the one I thought it was.

[Samurai Waki]

Here we are, fighting a pointless War thousands of miles away, spending Billions annually (maybe more). And yet on our door step, the poorest are reduced to eating dirt. This is unacceptable. I mean just the state that I live in puts out enough Agriculture to supply the worlds Wheat intake six times over every year... I wonder why none of it ever leaves...

[Vladimir]

Here we are, fighting a pointless War thousands of miles away, spending Billions annually (maybe more). And yet on our door step, the poorest are reduced to eating dirt. This is unacceptable. I mean just the state that I live in puts out enough Agriculture to supply the worlds Wheat intake six times over every year... I wonder why none of it ever leaves...

What are you doing about it? The food, not the war.

[Samurai Waki]

The Government Pays the Ranchers not to grow it. Wouldn't want to be flooding the market with too much agriculture so that it's worthless now would we?

[gibsonsg91921]

Well, that's the trade-off. Should the farmers starve due to poor crop prices or the denizens below the poverty line continue to struggle? It's never black and white.

[Papewaio]

How about the Government keeps paying them for the wheat to be produced and then used in Aid?

[Zim]

The U.S. government has bought extra wheat to give as aid before, but more than a few times the government we gave the food to went around and sold it to buy weapons. If I recall correctly, that's one of the reasons the U.S. sometimes just air drops food in places where it's needed rather than trying to give it through official channels.

Another problem we've run into is that flooding a country with free food can lower its value to the point that farmers in the country are forced out of business, making the country even less able to sustain itself nd more dependent on outside sources.

That's not to say it can't be done, just that implementing the idea will be more complicated than is readily apparent.

How about the Government keeps paying them for the wheat to be produced and then used in Aid?