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With Food Shortage, Venezuelans Forced to Eat Diet That Will Make Them “Stunted and Fat”
Along with harsh conditions and political instability, Venezuelans can expect to endure long-term health effects.
Nutrition experts who are familiar with the shortage of food and staple goods in the collapsing country say that Venezuelans are being forced onto a poor diet just to get by, and it will result almost directly in stunted growth and obesity in both children and adults.
Long lines and empty shelves have already defined the experience in Caracas, but now the overwhelmingly urban population has less and less opportunity to obtain meat, milk and other sources of protein and instead are being forced onto a nutritionally void diet of grains, rise and pasta.
Many families are filling bellies with water and cornstarch and other hunger pacifiers that nonetheless do not fulfill our human needs.
As the London Guardian reports:
With prolonged shortages of basic foods, Venezuelans have been forced to shift their diets to whatever they can find. And what they can find is not necessarily healthy.
Milk, meat and beans – the main sources of protein in the Venezuelan diet – are hard to find or sold at exorbitant prices, and many are filling up on empty carbs from pasta, rice and the traditional arepa cornmeal cake.
“These fill you up and make you fat but they are not nutritious,” said nutritionist Héctor Cruces. “Viscera are high in fat and low on protein.”
This isn’t positive-spin propaganda to encourage healthy eating habits. This is a full-blown crisis, and the people will suffer the unseen consequences of the failures of socialist government.
An estimated 30% of school-aged children are malnourished, as President Maduro cut domestic food production and shifted Venezuela’s economy to an import-dominated structure.
Unfortunately, the future is skewed towards children who will have less developed brains, unnecessary weight gain and stunted growth:
Paula Arciniegas, 19, said she worried about the development of her two-year-old daughter because when she can’t find milk – which is often – she calms her child’s hunger with a mix of water and cornstarch.
“And I try to get her to sleep through the morning so I don’t have to worry about her breakfast,” she said.
Cruces, the nutritionist, predicted that future generations of Venezuelans will be shorter and wider because of the low quality of the food they are consuming. “The lack of calcium will stunt growth and excess carbohydrates will make them fat,” he said.
Now that the money is in hyper-economy and falling oil prices have undermined the state-run government and food distribution, the population is left with even less.
Reports have circulated regarding the fact that many have become desperate enough to poach stray animals and even eat pets in order to survive.
Dogs, goats, cats and pigeons have all been added to the menu, after the vast majority are left with nothing else but starches and other junk foods that fill but do not truly feed.
The world turns its eyes away from humanitarian crisis, but that is exactly what is at hand… the silent genocide of a once proud people.
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Contributed by Melissa Dykes of The Daily Sheeple.
Melissa Dykes is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple and a co-creator of Truthstream Media with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded Nutritional Anarchy with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up!
Source: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/with-food-shortage-venezuelans-forced-to-eat-diet-that-will-make-them-stunted-and-fat_052016
