Why Mud Cakes and Food Riots in Haiti?
Dear Friends It is giving us sleepless nights and increasingly becoming heart rending to note that people are having to eat mud cakes in Haiti — cakes made of margarine, mud & salt — to keep hunger at bay as the price of food rockets around the world, with a particularly adverse impact on the developing world. You will have no doubt already read, “Food Security: Why has the Global Food Crisis reached Emergency Proportions?” For months, people in Haiti have been going hungry. The recent rises, particularly in the price of rice, have tipped people over the edge. They are having to eat mud cakes, known as Teh, to help quiet their excrutiating hunger pangs. Starvation is the main cause for doing so, although Pica, which occurs sometimes with iron deficiency anemia, may also be present in the Haitian population. Food riots in Haiti caused the deaths of five people about a fortnight ago, including a UN peacekeeper, and forced the country’s prime minister out of office. No country has escap
