“Forced” .. the Lebanese in the month of Ramadan in front of a harsh diet

For many Lebanese, the month of Ramadan this year is unlike what they were accustomed to before. They feel compelled to abandon traditional axioms at breakfast tables, and that governments’ mismanagement of economic crises is forcing them to follow a forced diet against their will.

In the past few days, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese families began receiving symbolic cash aid from a program supported by the World Bank, which says that food inflation has reached about 400 percent in a country classified among the three worst economic crises in the world in more than a century, after the collapse began in Lebanon at the end of the year. 2019.

Exactly a year ago, UNICEF conducted a survey in April 2021, which showed that three out of ten families with at least one child went to bed without dinner or skipped eating at least one of the three meals in a country where crises have thrown three-quarters of the country’s population of 6 Millions of people are in poverty, and made them the most miserable, according to the “Annual Happiness” report published by the United Nations Sustainable Solutions Network two weeks ago.

The living conditions of the Lebanese have not improved since the month of Ramadan, according to experts. In fact, the prices of basic foodstuffs have doubled due to mismanagement, greed of merchants and the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war, to the extent that Mrs. Samia Bakhaazi, who is usually quiet, works in the kitchen of their small restaurant. For home meals in Beirut, she seemed confused and repeated her calculations and muttered in displeasure: “How much will I sell the Ramadan Iftar at these prices, and who will buy it to eat?”

For Jamil Jarrab (51 years old), the disappointment preceded the start of the month of Ramadan, after he received from the owner of the electricity subscription generator a message announcing the start of the new month in which feeding hours are increased until the time of Suhoor, and he was given a choice between two things: Either he would increase the cost of his electrical consumption in his home In Beirut, from about $80 to $130, or he would “sadly have to” turn off the generators.

Jamil mocks these sudden decisions with the advent of the month of Ramadan, and says, “It is as if we are faced with a choice between two diseases, high blood pressure or diabetes, which means either bowing and paying to the owner of the subscription, or we buy kalaj and mafroukah sweets… So we decided to give in to pressure, and stay away from diabetes. .”

Jamil considers that the government’s policies imposed on the Lebanese a compulsory diet, and perhaps more than that. Like many Lebanese, he says, “I feel like we’re on the side of the road.”

Meanwhile, in her small kitchen, Samia points to the fattoush dish, astonished, and says, “For fifty thousand pounds, who will eat it? I will make it optional for those who ask for it in breakfast?”

The “International Information” company specialized in statistics and studies published, on Friday, a study confirming lofty estimates, as it revealed that the cost of the fattoush dish for five people amounted to 4,250 pounds in the year 2020, and has now risen to 50,530 pounds, an annual increase of 311 percent, in light of a significant increase in prices. Its ingredients are tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, mint, radishes, olive oil and sour, in addition to lettuce, for example, whose price has increased from 3 thousand pounds to 15,000 pounds.

Economist Dr. Fadi Ghosn agrees with the phenomenon of diet imposed on the Lebanese in general, saying that in addition to his internal crises and high levels of inflation globally, there has been a crazy rise in food prices, and their expensive types such as meat were absent from many tables, so the Lebanese sought cheap alternatives, even He resorted to rationing the ingredients in the cooking or dish, adding a cheaper ingredient, replacing the more expensive ingredient in the salad bowl.

Traditionally, the Ramadan Iftar meal consists of lentil soup, juice, dates and dough chips, along with the main daily dish, and Ramadan sweets. In the month of Ramadan last year, such a meal was sold for about 35,000 pounds, but Samia, who is now confused in her kitchen, indicates that she will allow the customer to remove one or more components from this integrated meal according to his financial ability, meaning that she may sell the main dish to whomever wishes, Without the other ingredients, or choose what is within his pocket.

Samia lists the food components whose prices have gone up. She wonders, “Even if I sell a Ramadan meal for 150,000 Syrian pounds, I will be a loser, and I don’t have the hard heart to sell to people at a price higher than that.”

For this reason, Samia canceled many types of dishes from her weekly dishes, including the roast beef dish, where the price of a kilogram of it reached about 300,000 Syrian pounds, not to mention the cost of boiled vegetables and potatoes along with it. “Even many well-to-do people sometimes complain about the prices of dishes,” she says in astonishment. “Did you know that a dozen falafel has become 70,000 liras?”

Fadi Ghosn fears the repercussions of the “failed state” theory in which we live and its inability to provide food security for citizens, as more than half of them live below the minimum standard of living, saying, “Unfortunately, we have not seen any proactive official plan to address any future emergency such as rising prices, or even The loss of basic commodities (oils, sugar, wheat, oil), and the reaction usually comes late, or is limited to studies. The treatments come from the private sector at high prices for the citizen.”

At the famous al-Antabli sweets shop in Beirut, Muammar al-Antabli is no less perplexed than Samia, as he sighs, “This year, no sweets. We won’t sell Qatayef or kaleaj. Who will eat them? Maybe King Richard only if he rose from his grave.”

Al-Antabli added, angrily, “A bottle of pomegranate juice will be sold for 260,000 Syrian pounds. What is happening is never described. This is blasphemy. They are pushing people to steal to eat.”