Posted on 02/11/2008 6:54:44 PM PST by blam
Spam at heart of South Pacific obesity crisis
By Nick Squires In Sydney
Last Updated: 12:32pm GMT 11/02/2008
It was lampooned by Monty Python and spurned by British shoppers, but Spam is fuelling a "raging epidemic" of diabetes, strokes and heart disease among the previously lithe inhabitants of the South Pacific.
Another of Britain's colonial culinary legacies - corned beef - is also being blamed for a rise in obesity-related illnesses in countries once known for muscled warriors and slim-hipped maidens.
Many islanders drive to the local shop to buy tins of spam
Countries across the region - many of them former British territories, from Tonga to Tuvalu - are struggling to deal with a health crisis caused by poor diet and not enough exercise.
Where once islanders ate fish, vegetables and coconuts, burning off excess calories by casting nets from canoes and farming small plots of land, now they eat tinned, processed food and drive to the nearest shop.
Once confined to the South Pacific's somnolent capitals, the problem of obesity has now spread to outlying islands.
"Even if you go into a store in a remote village you'll find shelves of Spam and corned beef," said Dr Jan Pryor, the director of research at the Fiji School of Medicine.
"In the past it was unusual for anyone to have a stroke under 50, now people are having strokes in their twenties and thirties. You see it every day."
Figures from the World Health Organisation show that Pacific island nations make up eight of the world's 10 most obese countries.
"What we have in this country is a raging epidemic. We have 6,000 to 8,000 cases of diabetes out of a population of 53,000 people," said Carl Hacker, the director of economic policy and planning in the Marshall Islands.
"What is unfolding here is a physical disaster and a fiscal disaster."
The single-island nation of Nauru, which faces economic disaster in the wake of its Australian-run refugee detention centre closing down last week, heads the list with 94.5 per cent of people older than 15 defined as obese.
Similar problems are repeated across the South Pacific.
"When I was a child, there was less imported food, we would eat local food, which was high carbohydrate, low sugar and high fibre," said Dr Malokai Ake, the chief medical officer for public health in Tonga.
"We would walk or ride on a horse to work in the plantations and spend a lot of time fishing, swimming or diving.
"The amount of calories people have every day now, we used to only have on feast days."
Researchers have suggested Pacific Islanders have a genetic disposition to obesity. They say their metabolism has learned to cope over thousands of years with times of plenty and periods of famine by quickly storing surplus calories as body fat.
Tonga's late king, Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, who died in 2006, was once renowned as the world's heaviest monarch, weighing in at 440lbs.
He tried to persuade his subjects to lose weight by taking up - in his seventies - regular bicycle rides up and down the runway of the country's international airport.
But education has not been enough to curb the growth of obesity, largely because of economics.
It is cheaper to buy "mutton flaps" - belly cuts from sheep which are high in saturated fat - from New Zealand and Australia, or "turkey tails" from the US, than fresh local fish.
Some countries have tried banning the most unhealthy imports.
Fiji banned the importation of mutton flaps in 2000 and Samoa banned imports of turkey tails in 2007.
Actually all this started during WWII with the Navy and Marines’ bases in the South Pacific. Pacific islanders became a Cargo Cult, paid off with canned rations and rice. Spam was a favorite.
Holy crap! 3 1/2 grams(!) of cholesterol. That’s insane.
A friend of mine who served in the Pacific during WWII always says that Spam won the war, not the Manhattan project:~))
Think about it. All those GIs wanted some meat --- any meat, and canned meat was the only way to do it.
My friend George is 84 years old now. He still eats Spam and likes it, (and still drinks Jim Beam ... and likes that even better, along with a good cigar).
But he says their ain't nearly as much lard in the Spam now as in the old days when he was flying off the deck of the USS Wasp to fight the Japs.
I love that guy. He's a national treasure.
We ate Spam regularly when I was a kid and the whole family was rail thin. This article is just more BS blaming everything and everything except the porkers that can’t push back from the table. It is simply hard to argue with calories in and calories burned.
The Soviet Army survived on Spam during WW2.
(Thin mints are better)
Spam fritters, yum !
I didn't know Spam could expire. We were eating leftovers from the Korean War in 66.
It does not matter it's still your fault. (Isn't that the tone of the article? They have no responsibility for themselves what-so-ever)
Pure Bull! When we first got to Nam, we had spam every other meal (alternating with canned Salmon). I lost weight!
Like this one:
"South Pacific villagers worship a mysterious American they call John Frum - believing he'll one day shower their remote island with riches"
"It was a theory of mine that former cannibals of Oceania now feasted on Spam because Spam came the nearest to approximating the porky taste of human flesh. "Long Pig" as they called a cooked human being in much of Melanesia. It was a fact that the people-eaters of the Pacific had all evolved, or perhaps degenerated, into Spam-eaters. And in the absence of Spam they settled for corned beef, which also had a corpsy flavor."
As quoted by Oliver Sacks in his book The Island of the Colorblind.
I should also note that Dr Sacks is a bit sceptical about this.
Mo’bettah ono brah !
Island-Style Loco Moco
Serves One
One grilled hamburger patty
Two scoops steamed rice
One scoop homemade macaroni salad
(mix some potato cubes to your usual mac salad recipe,
substituting low-fat mayo, if desired)
One fried egg
(save calories and fat by poaching egg)
½ cup prepared brown gravy
(fat-free gravy tastes rich and delicious!)
In a shallow soup bowl or deep dinner plate * (see note below), arrange two scoops of hot steamed rice. Over the steamed rice, place a hot grilled hamburger patty.
Center fried or poached egg on hamburger and ladle as much VERY hot brown gravy over portion as your taste dictates. Spoon macaroni salad to one side.
Break up egg and hamburger, mixing into rice while eating.
Serve with plenty of paper napkins.
I agree with you. Spam has been popular in the Pacific since WWII. It can’t suddenly be causing a health crisis.
Refugee detention centres and guano-mining - if you were a Nauruan and this was almost the entire source of your country’s wealth, wouldn’t YOU commit suicide-by-Spam?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.