No ruler has a right to tell people what to eat

Mar 13, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The decision to ban wheat and wheaten flour was typical of backwardness that characterized economic policy-making at the time the prohibition was implemented in Guyana. Flour was a basic staple in the Guyanese diet. You cannot take away flour from the national diet and have no suitable replacement for bread, bake, roti, cakes and all the other nice things that are made from flour.
Rice flour was never a substitute for wheaten flour. Rice flour cannot be rolled into breads and is difficult to make into bakes and roti. It has no gluten and therefore does not hold together a mix in the same way that wheaten flour does.
To ask Guyanese to substitute rice flour for wheaten flour was a crazy decision, because it meant that the things we eat for breakfast had to change since bakes, bread and roti, could not be made exclusively from rice flour.
Rice flour best uses are as additives. The same way that certain bio-fuels are added to gasoline, so too can rice flour be added to wheat flour, but it cannot be a perfect substitute for wheaten flour.
The decision to ban the importation of wheat and wheaten flour therefore seriously disrupted the lifestyles of Guyanese. And Guyanese do not like their lifestyles to be disrupted. Worse yet, they do not enjoy when changes are imposed on them.
When a rule was passed that workers in Government offices had to wear shirt jacks instead of shirt and ties, there was resentment but because jobs were hard to come by and things were tight, and since in those days non-compliance with official edicts had serious consequences, workers complied but they were never happy with that decision.
Their unhappiness did not spring from having to wear shirt jacks. That type of wear is better suited to our climate than shirt and tie. They resented it because they had no choice in the matter; it was a decision imposed on them.
Even to this day, the vast majority of Guyanese in America still stick to their national diets. Most of those living in the Tri-State area go to the West Indian stores each week to purchase their food supplies because despite so many of them living in America for more than 20 or 30 years, they still prefer to eat the things that they grew up eating in Guyana.
When they come to Guyana for vacation, they take back overseas loads of local produce because it is not easy to separate people from their traditional culture. They want the foods that they were weaned on.
The food bans of the 1970s and 1980s created real difficulties for all Guyanese, but they were particularly harsh on one group since much of the items that formed part of their basic diet was restricted or prohibited. Not only was flour banned but also split peas and potatoes. These form part of the daily diet for all Guyanese, but have special significance for East Indians.
Blackeye peas was also banned, but this bean was grown extensively in Guyana, even on large farms by the Guyana National Service. So blackeye peas was available. But not split peas which is used by persons of all persuasions but is especially used for dhal by East Indians. You can replace split peas cook-up with blackeye cook-up but what substitute peas would you use to make dhal?
The flour ban was hard on everyone. You can thicken your stew with rice and cassava flour but you cannot make bread, bake and roti with rice flour. It does not hold together and therefore the ban on flour created real hardships for everyone.
That it came at a time when things were real difficult compounded the problem. Many people today in the Diaspora are ashamed to recall that period since many of them had to subsist on cassava pone and sugar cake for breakfast. Those are snack foods but during the time of the flour ban, parents were forced to give their children cassava pone for breakfast and place a sugar cake in their lunch kits for their mid-day meal.
When the children came home from school at 15:00 hrs., they would get a meal of rice and whatever else was cooked. Those were humiliating days for families and this is why it is so unpleasant for the older generation to recall them.
Guyana will never go back to those days.
But if by chance the situation arrives whereby some government wishes to reintroduce a ban on imported food items and force rice flour onto the populace, the Guyanese people will resent it even more than before because they have grown accustomed to deciding what they will eat rather than the rulers dictating their tastes.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

 

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