Everyone who has gone to Cuba and is at all interested in
nutrition has noticed that the
Cuban diet is not optimal.
The reasons for this are partly economic, but to a much greater extent
cultural - when Cubans have more economic resources the main dietary change is
to eat far more meat. The historic
reasons are complex - Cuba lacks an indigenous food tradition, the main dietary
influence is Spanish, of course, but the plantation economy did not encourage
peasant subsistence agriculture since people had no land to cultivate. They worked in the cane or the coffee
and ate what they were given. So,
what does the typical Cuban diet include?
Staples are congri - a rice and bean mix, or beans and rice in another
form, and starchy potato-like vegetables - viandas. Add fried bananas, and pork or chicken if there is any, and
that's about it, except for dessert.
Some salad of cucumber, cabbage or avocado may be eaten sometimes. Street snacks are bread with - ham,
cheese, egg, or made into pizza, little fried bits, and ice cream, which is
everywhere. This is it for most
people and furthermore it is what they want to eat, only more meat and lunch
meat, please.
Making a cultural change, especially a dietary one in this
situation of fixed habits, is a hard job.
Jose (Pepe) Lamas and Vilda Figueroa have been at it for more than 15
years. Their multi-faceted
Proyecto de Conservacion de Alimentos includes gardening - growing herbs,
vegetables and fruits for home use; methods of canning and drying foods within
the Cuban situation - Pepe, an engineer by trade has invented a solar dryer
which can be made from locally available materials; and cooking a wider variety of healthy foods with delicious
recipes. They do a radio program;
publish extensively about food, nutrition, preservation methods, with many
cookbooks; and train food activist "promoters" to return to their
communities and teach others. They
are always experimenting with new plants, recipes, and methods; both seem
tireless, although I'm sure this is an illusion.
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| Pepe Lamas with giant red quimbombo |
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| Vilda Figueroa at a conference |
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| At a book launch - the latest publication will be available in English. |
What can be grown in Cuba? How? What
methods can prevent abundant harvests from being wasted? How can the diet be extended to include
healthy food which is locally available, and how can this healthy food be made
so delicious that even those closely tied to the traditional Cuban diet cannot
resist it? These are
the questions which Conservacion de Alimentos asks and answers.
