AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Belize Life Living in Belize Vegetable import ban

Sorry SIN and others - food is about NUTRITION and nutrition is about HEALTH.
We should be allowed to obtain foods that will support our health.
For instance - about those green peppers versus those red peppers ---- people with risk of stroke or heart attacks (many a belizean fits this category) are on medication that reacts terribly with anything green ---- for those people there is a huge difference between red peppers and green ..... and that is the tip of the iceberg.
Mushrooms, cauliflower and broccoli are strong anti-oxident foods. These are not luxuries, they are how we keep healthy.
Frankly this is perhaps the one thing that could cause me to move out of this country --- if i cannot support my health with good nutrition there is no way we can contemplate old age here, because if we stay and eat crapy food we will not make it to old age.

Take a look at the levels of hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, obesity and bad dental health in the population that subsists on a traditional Belizean diet!
Let's fry an onion in lard for half an hour and then fry some hormone filed chicken and add some gummy white rice .......... or bring up a generation of kids on sweetened condensed milk,fry jacks and ideals. Not smart.

We've about fished out the seas -- and the mennonite chickens are pumped so full of hormones that it's terrifying.

Are we really expecting this country to go back to the days of soft carrots, salted fish, soggy cabbage and rotten onions? This is cave-man stuff - realy stupid, really counter-productive.

San Pedro has developed from a lousy place to eat, to a place known for it's really fantastic food - we DO have culinary tourism now and it's a great thing - it also has a lot to do with people deciding this is a decent place for longer-term living (retirement).

Seems like every administration has one guy from Cayo who rams this kind of thing through just after an election without clear planning and thought --- it's nuts. Then we try to get the veggies out to AC and find out that the growers have no understanding on how to ship or deliver ----
Ridiculous and infuriating.

Talking to some of the suppliers in BZE, this "ban" is simply not going to happen...

Thats good to hear! There's only so much I can cook with a green pepper, an onion and a head of cabbage.

Wow, how did people manage back in the day? I'm surprised my inlaws are still alive.

I foresee some compromises on the horizon.

I see nothing wrong with a healthy diet of sweetened condensed milk, ideals and a big plate of plantain deep fried in lard for dinner. Good thing medical is cheap here.

Does San Pedro need a produce farm up the coast? Any investors out there???? Since we seem to know it all, let's show em' how.

SIN

...we actually have a "farm up the coast" on the backside of the Caye. That does not mean I want to see ridiculous constraints on what is allowed to be imported. EX: has anyone seen the carrots available as of late? Again, I'm not talking "sunchokes" or "morel mushrooms" or "fresh ramps"... I'm talking carrots. Good thing here that 99% of the time they're drowned in Heinz salad cream...

BELMOPAN, Belize, April 29, 2008 - The Belize government has announced tax and duty relief to farmers to reduce the cost of local food production and by extension, reduce food prices for consumers.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow announced this among the main measures to address the rising cost of living affecting not only Belize but countries across the world.

"We will look particularly closely at the imported inputs that go into agricultural production with a view to eliminating or lowering duties on these so that we might lower the cost of production," he said.

He said government would also provide farmers with expanded access to credit.

"When we give them access to credit as well as lower their costs of production, two things will happen: The prices that they will sell their products for in the local market will go down, and so there will be a direct, dramatic decrease in the cost of food items with respect to local production in this country," Mr Barrow said.

The Belize leader said at the same time, the country's consumer protection agency would be expanded and a new Consumer Protection Act passed to ensure that the savings made by farmers as a result of the relief and assistance are passed on to consumer by way of lower prices. He said price controls will be implemented.

Mr Barrow however urged consumers to shift their consumption patterns, noting that his administration had no intention on lowering duties on imported food "that's not very nutritious, not very healthy and which constitutes a drain on foreign exchange".

"There will be a precisely targeted series of interventions, but we encourage our people to consume more of what we produce, to shift their consumption patterns," he said.

The Prime Minister, who also indicated that the country was looking to expand the production of basic grains, said increased production would allow Belize to develop and in some cases increase its export capacity.

He said that already El Salvador has requested beans to be produced for their market and indicated that they could take some 40 000 tonnes from Belize.

"So, in addition to lower prices here at home, our farmers will be earning much needed foreign exchange. Their standard of living will increase, the country will benefit from the inflows of foreign exchange, and I'm saying in terms of the basics for our people, the prices will go down," Mr Barrow indicated.

"I see nothing wrong with a healthy diet of sweetened condensed milk, ideals and a big plate of plantain deep fried in lard for dinner. Good thing medical is cheap here."

SIN, is everything a big fat joke to you? This is a serious issue, as Diane very wisely describes it. One of the main problems here is that there is no variety in what people eat and that what they eat is not really very healthy. As for the cheap medical: Well, it might be to you; but it surely ain't cheap to the hotel maid and the construction worker with two sick kids.

I have to respond to my friend Weile, who I think is one of the coolest guys on the island and I absolutely love what he has going on up in Mata Grande!

Not everything is a joke, but if you can't laugh about how things operate in Belize then the other option is to cry. I don't live here for that. I always try to RESPOND to change than REACT, which I see too much of on this "information" board that has no real impact on Government policy.

It is easy to understand what is happening in Belmopan, especially as I was in Cayo working with my party for the last election. We lost by the way. Needless to say a compromise will be made, or rather balance will be found especially when the island (center of tourism) now has a very smart representative and Minister on our side, an islander, in addition to local members on the Tourism Board. The pendulum swings, folks are trying to make radical changes, as they promised, which in effect put them in power. Things really got out of hand in the last few years, so the shutters may be pulled in a bit as they were wide open. Belize does need to learn how to produce better veggies and other food items, this is a valid attempt even though not the best thought out plan.

On the other hand there are very healthy foods in Belize although maybe not everyone's favorite choice and a bit limited in variety. Greens = Chaya, the best dark green vegetable on the market, it grows wild in Belize. Protein/Fiber = red kidney and black beans, Belizean. Fish from the sea, have you been to the Conch Shell Bay fish market lately? Citrus, papayas, mangoes, avacados, guava brocolli, peppers, etc.. Belizean beef doesn't get much leaner, I just had a killer T-bone from Southside Meats the other day.

Respond folks, don't react - kinda like taking medicince.

Also, I was the construction worker Weile and my wife has been a maid (amongst other jobs paying us $BZ150 per week and raising three children with plenty of Doctor's visits). My kids live in Cayo and drink fresh milk and eat very healthy home cooked meals daily. Besides some parasites now and again they and the entire set of inlaws are disease free and very healthy. Perhaps its the exercise. If folks here can spend $100s a week on alcohol, I'm sure they don't have a problem spending it on their health.

I said I wouldn't but I have to chime in here too. For generations Belizeans, Mayans, etc ate a diet including the fats, condensed milk, plaintains, pork, coconut, etc and were not dying of heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc till the "western" junk foods, pharmacueticals and sedentary and/or high stress lifestyle became popular. It is not always about the foods but about the lifestyle. People in Greece eat meat, cheese, fats, fried foods everyday and are not dropping dead of high cholesterol, etc. And are not on lipitor, and the rest of that crap supposed to "cure" the man made diseases (which actually just keep you on the meds for life and care nothing about cure.)
Yes, tourists like Belize better with the great restaurants available now. Can't the chefs work with what Belize can produce? Maybe it will create a whole new sustainable culinary style.