My friend Bridget and I walked into the open-air market in Maramag, Bukidnon, Philippines on an afternoon as we did several times each week to shop for what we thought to be the necessary groceries for the group of us. As we approached the market in the motorella, a motor cycle attached to somewhat of a buggy, the taxi’s of Maramag, I tried to take a deep breath and work up the courage to make yet another trip that week for groceries. As we did not have means to store food in our house with poor refrigeration and little critters that enjoyed our food often before we did, our trips were rather frequent to this colorful market. We handed our motorella driver seven pesos for the ride and walked up the stairs, immediately greeted by the smiles of some familiar faces.
This was the “grocery” store for the time that we lived in the Philippines. It was where we bought all that we would need for a day or two. The items that we purchased would include rice, meat, vegetables and fruit. Those were the only options. There were no frills or extra things that we would sometimes happen upon, but merely these simple ingredients for sustenance. Surprisingly, rice became a staple in our diet before we knew it.
Consider the idea of filling up on rice every day for survival, assuming there is enough of it to go around. Rice actually expands in the stomach and makes one feel more full than most other foods. In most parts of the United States rice is not an every day staple in our American diets. Most of us eat it maybe a few times a month. In the Philippines rice consumption is quite the opposite as it is harvested in abundance. As a developing country, luxuries are few especially when it comes to food. Many of the people that live there eat rice most days. Fruit, meat or vegetables are eaten on other days when the budget allows. We were only visitors for a year in the Philippines and did not ever starve as many of the Filippinos actually do. The diet of the Filippinos is very different than the diet of most Americans. As Americans we are rather spoiled when it comes to food.At the market, we would begin with the fruit, to me the best part of the whole market, and purchase a few bananas from one vendor, a pineapple from another and some mangos from the last vendor. Next we moved along to the vegetable vendors. As we tried to find the best price for the things on our list, we were surprised by little mice that on occasion would crawl out from some vegetable piles or small lizards running here and there atop the food. The vegetable selections were few as well, as all of the vendors carried the same things and most of which were foreign to us. This made it hard to know how to prepare meals!
The meat, the last and worst part in my opinion, is where we had to go next. The hanging carcasses of cows or pigs were before us with every piece of the animals available for purchase out on the counter tops. The trick was to know which pieces were familiar and how many kilos we needed. We ended up buying a kilo of chicken, mostly the breasts, as well as a kilo and a half of pork chopped off of the pig with the butcher’s massive machete, right before our eyes. It was placed on the scale, and put in the plastic bag for us to take home, unsure of what part of the pig we just purchased. We carried what seemed like the basic necessities back to our house in the motorella and were done with our shopping for maybe a day or two.
It is amazing how different the shopping experience was while we were in the Philippines compared to grocery stores in the U.S. No one was buying food to make big elaborate meals, or to stock up for several days but rather just to survive for a day or two until the wages came in for the next day or two. It is also interesting to analyze the sanitary conditions of the market as opposed to our grocery stores. What would one think if there were hanging carcasses of dead animals, or small little rats that crawled around on our food, at the grocery store?
Growing up as a child and still today when my family or most families that I knew went to the grocery we stocked up for a long period of time and filled the pantries at my house. Not only did we fill the pantry, but we filled the refrigerator, deep freezer in the garage and the freezer in the kitchen. They were all full, sometimes to the point where nothing else was going to fit. Shopping for groceries was not for survival like in the Philippines, but we stocked up like something was going to happen to us before we were able to get to the store again. Costco and Sam's Club were frequented as things are cheaper the more you buy. Is the hoarding that we do in the States, just because we have the means to, really necessary? After living in the Philippines I would have to without a doubt in my mind answer no to this question. However, it is the American mentality to buy, buy, buy more stuff, more food, even though it is not actually necessary. Our malls are bustling with people purchasing new clothes and trinkets to add to our collections and sit in our large walk-in closets. The temperature controlled, sanitary grocery stores keep their shelves stocked full for us to buy more food than sometimes is even healthy for one person to consume. There are more choices for any item imaginable lining our grocery shelves so as to give Americans as much as possible. In the Philippines if you were able to find one kind of one thing it was a good day.
Although rice in many ways does not provide all of the nutrients that one needs to remain as optimally healthy as we human beings could be, is it better to have more than we need piling up on our shelves, in our kitchens, often times being thrown away after exhausting its shelf life? Is it better to eat so much that one’s health is in jeopardy when there are people who eat only rice, if it is available, everyday? These are two very different lifestyles and cultures, but to say that America is better off because there is more, more, more of everything and because grocery stores are sanitary would be a fallacy that I myself am not willing to make. They are different.
