Bread, in Jordan, is the staple of life. We Americans do not understand diet so dependent on bread, not so much for nutritional value, but rather whose purpose is to make a body full. The poorer communities here in Jordan boasting families who see meat once or twice a year on their plates depend on bread and other starches (beans, hommos, falafel) to have the energy they need to, well, .
I remember once popping a big hunk of Arabic cheese into my mouth in front of my mother-in-law. “What are you doing,” she asked me, “eating cheese by itself without bread?”
“I love cheese,” I told her.
“Cheese eaten without bread can give you worms!” she replied.
This is what they used to tell the kids back in her childhood days, so that they would get ‘full’ from the bread. Bread is satisfying. Bread fills the belly. Bread in the stomach keeps kids from crying because they are hungry.
As of yesterday here in Jordan, bread will have a hefty price tag. The normal flat bread (pita) will continue to have the same price, roughly .30 JD per kilo. All other breads and sweets and anything made from flour that will no longer be subsidized by the government will face a huge increase.
My children always take a sandwich to school made with , which is like a small sub roll. I have always taken for granted its affordability: .20 JD per kilo, or about 1.5 qirsh a loaf. Yesterday’s un-subsidizing of the flour now makes one kilo of the khubbez hammam cost .60 qirsh, or over one half of a Jordanian dinar! This is now a luxury item for myself and millions of parents giving their children sandwiches for school each day. What about the programs in the government schools in place that are trying to feed kids who normally would have nothing to eat during the school hours? Tkiyet Um Ali is one of the programs that battles hunger in Jordan; are the prices per piece of bread going to raise for these kinds of organizations as well?
This whole trickle-down plan which is aimed at curbing overconsumption of flour is indeed going to curb it, and hungry people are going to pay the price.
The bakery near my house already was charging 1/2 JD for one donut. What will that increase to, over 1 JD per sweet? My friend Um Abdurrahman’s bakery increased each cake slice by 1 whole JD yesterday, making cost 2.25 JD. I can by a whole chicken for that amount of money. Every restaurant in the kingdom serving hamburger buns or the khubbez hammam or any other kind of bread besides the plain flat bread is going to have to increase its prices.
When is there going to be an end in sight?
Complete Alli Diet review from dietitian’s perspective.