Now that I’m turning vegan but still sometimes I believe eating once or twice a month of absolutely clean meat for social purposes I should be able to handle; I’m beginning to see the flaws of our carnivorous and unsanitary Filipino food culture.
Although we have probably been eating this way for the past 50 to 100 years, it does not mean it is correct, nor is it optimal.
Here is my critique:
1. Filipinos eat too much meat! Meat at breakfast, meat at lunch, meat at dinner, meat during merienda (snacks). The culture surmises that not being able to serve meat is the biggest sign of poverty. So by this logic, everyone is now prosperous, especially in the city where meat has become cheaper than vegetables and fruits. In fact the common urban Filipino has rice and meat as the top two priorities in his meal, vegetables and fruits are optional and many times non-existent. Most think they will never be satisfied with a meal that has no meat in it.
2. Unsanitary and unfresh meat handling. Meats are displayed without refrigeration. Meats are displayed with dirty, ugly flies infesting them. Prospective buyers pressing their fingers on them. And they pigs and chickens are grown on corporate feeds, hormones, antibiotics. At least filipino cows are still fed grass. Yuck. The fish? They come from far away. Put on a truck. Dead for several hours. Water and ice put on them to make them seem fresh. Yuck. I now only buy freshly killed goat maybe once a month in the morning, cook immediately for lunch. I also buy only live fish. Kill to cook immediately.
At least most Filipinos have the common sense to only cook LIVE CRABS, never dead ones. That is one good point.
3. Vegetable dishes, vegetarian cooking is absent in traditions. Filipinos usually cannot make vegetable dishes without using some form of animal as flavoring. What is now worse is many are brainwashed to believe those multinational corporation advertisements to substitute meat flavoring with artificial chemical flavors found in instant flavor cubes or flavor sachets.
4. White rice is everywhere. Most Filipinos refuse to eat brown or red rice. Rice and bread in the morning. Rice at lunch. Rice at dinner. Breads in the snacks. Rice cakes as snacks. Rice, rice, rice. You want to torture a filipino? Feed him no rice for a couple of days. In fact, our nannies call a meal “rice.” A meal is not a meal without rice. And that is what I keep on hammering at our nannies, call lunch lunch, call breakfast breakfast. Instead of asking our children, have you eaten “rice”? You haven’t finished your “rice?” What a bad joke.
The top meal combination is rice + meat (or eggs or fish). Ultimately acidic. No wonder dentistry is lucrative and common. Teeth are being leached of calcium to alkalize the body.
I’m changing this for the sake of my children. My goal will be measured by the number of cavities my children suffer from.
Now is my chance to save my 3 year old from the acidic culture. Wish me luck. I have to do battle with the whole household. But I am daddy. And that counts for a lot.