Pao­lo Ker­na­han

All of these sur­veys, such an abid­ing in­ter­est in lit­tle old T&T. We have the sex­i­est ac­cent; we are the most un­friend­ly peo­ple; we are the hap hap hap­pi­est fools around and our Prime Min­is­ter is one of the most cat­walk-wor­thy lead­ers, a dis­tinc­tion sure­ly laud­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions. The lat­est sur­vey sug­gests that we are the third fat­test na­tion on the en­tire plan­et. While that sta­tis­tic sounds like rub­bish, I am more in­clined to of­fer com­ment on re­ac­tions elicit­ed by this re­cent pop triv­ia dis­trac­tion.

One analy­sis posits that those in the low­er in­come brack­et grav­i­tate to­wards fast foods with high caloric counts be­cause this fare is cheap­er.

I am ashamed to ad­mit this but re­cent­ly I or­dered a box of Ken­tucky. My rigid di­etary reg­i­men broke free of its moor­ings be­cause I was trapped in my home, trapped by that state of emer­gency al­so known as Car­ni­val. I hadn't or­dered the Ken­tucky fried coro­nary in years so I was quite sur­prised to hear that the price had in­creased by a full $5. In­clud­ing the de­liv­ery fee of what I be­lieve to be al­so $5, I paid $60 dol­lars for that three-piece suit. While there are cheap­er fast food menu op­tions out there, the price dif­fer­ence is in­signif­i­cant.

A meal at the Gold­en arch­es can run you be­tween $30 and $40; if you have chil­dren, call it $100.

The prices are sim­i­lar at Burg­er king. For­get about the mega fast-food chains for a mo­ment and ex­am­ine, if you will, those grill hous­es or kitchens on wheels. The av­er­age price for a box filled with pota­to sal­ad, a piece of chick­en smoth­ered to death with sac­cha­rine sauce is $50 or more. The on­ly ex­cep­tion to the rule is Sub­way. This is the on­ly fran­chise in the coun­try where the poor man can still get a rea­son­ably healthy meal for a fair price.

Try­ing to copy and paste the Amer­i­can ar­gu­ment to T&T so­ci­ety does not make any sense. In the Unit­ed States you can walk in­to a Mc­Don­ald's or Burg­er King and fill your bel­ly for US$2.50. There­fore, in that so­ci­ety, it can be ar­gued that those with less dis­pos­able in­come re­ly heav­i­ly on cheap­er, nu­tri­tion­al­ly un­sound food op­tions. It al­so does not help that food that is bad for you is typ­i­cal­ly de­li­cious!

Here, if you are not brown bag­ging it, an in­di­vid­ual can ex­pect to spend on av­er­age $1000 a month on lunch alone, and that is a con­ser­v­a­tive es­ti­mate. Fig­ures may vary de­pend­ing on the food out­lets avail­able in the work en­vi­rons.

So the no­tion of fast-food chains in T&T feed­ing the poor is non­sense; fast food in this place is not cheap. What we've had over the last decade is a dra­mat­ic change in food cul­ture which has far reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions. That could not be demon­strat­ed more em­phat­i­cal­ly than by a re­cent an­nounce­ment made by the lo­cal fran­chise hold­er for Wendy's.

This in­ter­na­tion­al burg­er joint re­cent­ly in­di­cat­ed that it will soon be launch­ing 11 new restau­rants in this coun­try. Now what does that tell you? Our un­bri­dled ap­petite for fast food has cre­at­ed an en­vi­ron­ment where en­tre­pre­neurs are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an un­prece­dent­ed bo­nan­za.

It is al­ways sur­pris­ing to see fam­i­lies gath­ered at restau­rants hav­ing a meal–on a Sun­day! Sun­day lunch was an in­sti­tu­tion in this coun­try. More than a meal, the usu­al­ly long and drawn-out process was a vi­tal part of our cul­tur­al m�lange. Stand­ing sen­try over the pelau to make sure that the pep­per does not burst; fry­ing plan­tain; av­o­ca­do, toma­toes, cu­cum­ber, caraille (yuk!), steamed pump­kin dust­ed light­ly with black pep­per and salt–all fresh from Sat­ur­day's mar­ket vis­it.

There are still many among us who abide by this most Tri­ni of all rit­u­als but the pro­lif­er­a­tion of fast-food chains and high-end restau­rants could not have oc­curred with­out an ea­ger mar­ket. There has been not just a change in the way we eat but what we eat. With a dizzy­ing ar­ray of op­tions, we are gorg­ing our­selves on foods which were once ei­ther un­avail­able or so ex­pen­sive that they would scarce­ly be con­sid­ered.

Well, those foods such as steaks and ribs are more ex­pen­sive than ever but with cred­it cards and an ap­par­ent abun­dance of fold­ing mon­ey, we can go to Texas de Brazil and put away enough meat to give a li­on in­di­ges­tion.

While I am re­luc­tant to swal­low the "third fat­test in the world" sta­tis­tic we are at risk of gal­lop­ing down that path and in­to the em­brace of all of its at­ten­dant health prob­lems. Sure the mar­kets are noisy and dirty, but chances are you can get good pro­duce at prices which will not im­pov­er­ish the fam­i­ly.

The fat­ness sur­vey should en­cour­age us to take charge of what we con­sume. It is just ridicu­lous that we spend so much mon­ey on fast food which will on­ly have us spend­ing more mon­ey to fix the long-term med­ical prob­lems cre­at­ed by this junk. Makes you won­der how many doc­tors have shares in these fran­chis­es.