a tongan supermarket and the tongan diet

11.08.10 a tongan supermarket and the tongan diet

welcome to the largest supermarket in tonga. this is one of all its about 10 aisles. i kid you not, but EVERY CAN YOU SEE IN THIS SHOT IS CORNED ‘MEAT’!

well shit, no surprise so many of them are so ‘large’.

with a perfect climate and perfect soil to grow things in and abundance of life in the sea, i wonder what compels these people to eat this salty, fatty crap in a can. it doesn’t even taste good.

it has been proven genetically that the metabolisms of the tongan people really can not cope with too much fat, refined sugar or salt in their diets, yet this is precisely what they eat. they have skyrocketing rates of ‘grotesquely obese’ people and diabetes is on the rise.

any fresh veg is imported because they can’t be arsed growing it themselves. a bunch of celery costs AUD$12, because it’d airfreighted in from NZ.

the majority of ‘fresh’ meat they eat (ie: not in a can) comes in frozen from NZ – it’s called ‘lamb flaps’. i thought it came from a particularly sensitive part of the sheep, so i needed to ask around for more info. it’s basically the lamb belly, it’s also where the most fat accumulates. this stuff is near unsaleable in nz (or anywhere else really), so it’s frozen and sent of to tonga where it’s rapidly devoured. to be fair, i need to say that we DID stumble across about a dozen pigs troughing through some rubbish, so someone does cut animals on the island, and we DID eat some pretty awesome suckling pig on a spit, so someone, somewhere is doing the right thing.

EDIT: April 2011 – I just found this article in the Sydney Morning Herald on just this issue, check it out:
Junk meat diet takes a deadly toll in Tonga

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Posted: August 11th, 2010 under Photo A Day.
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Comments

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