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Salviano, a friend of an aunt of mine, is a retired bus
driver. Even so, he still works. Adelia, his wife, is a
skilled cook. To bolster the household budget and help
pay for her youngest son's college education, she has
already made ice cream, pies and the like. She currently
cooks and delivers ready-to-eat meals. Every day, four
options of dishes, plus side dishes and drinks.
Once, in a conversation with my aunt, Salviano declared,
in an unpretentious and smiling way: “Here at home there
are always bananas and oranges. You can't buy other
fruits, but bananas and oranges abound!” It's been a
while since this aunt told me this. At the time, Adelia
still did not deliver food at home and the country was
not the horror it is today. It could be that the family
situation has improved, I don't know. Even so,
considering the fact that Salviano still drives buses
and Adelia continues to work on the stove, everything
suggests that the fruit bowl is still not very
diversified. If so, I conclude that if the fact that
they were only able to buy two types of fruit bothered
me a few years ago, today, when I remember this story,
the discomfort returns. And it increases because
Salviano was not aware of the seriousness of what he
said at the time.
Our country is a generous land. We have an immense
biodiversity, ranging from the Amazon to the cerrado*,
passing through the caatinga, the pampas, the Atlantic
Forest... Here, “when you plant, everything grows”, as
the letter by Pero Vaz Caminha, written in 1500, when
the Portuguese arrived here. Therefore, the profusion of
fruit and vegetable producers is immense. Why, in a
country so rich with fertile soil and abundant water,
are there so many people like Adelia and Salviano?
* Translator’s note: Cerrado, also known as the
Brazilian savannah. Caatinga is the only
exclusively Brazilian biome. The Pampas are a
natural and pastoral region of grassy hillside plains
located in southern South America. Wikipedia
Thiago Lima, professor of international relations at the
Federal University of Paraiba (UFPB) and coordinator of
the research group on hunger and international relations
at the same institution, is a Spiritist, luckily for us.
On May 20, 2021, he granted an interview to the
“Coletivo Espiritas a Esquerda” in which he addresses
serious issues related to hunger.
With vast data available, as he is a specialist in the
matter (and in the light of the Spiritist Doctrine),
Thiago shows that our country has its history based on
hunger, and under several aspects. One of them shows:
Brazil produces more food to export than to feed the
native population. Thus, the less Brazilians eat, the
more products available for export. Therefore, the large
farmers and landowners profit more. On the other hand,
they will fill their coffers less if the food stays
here, since the profits from the domestic market are not
as large compared to what they earn when they sell food
to other countries. Therefore, we often pay dearly for
the food we buy at the supermarket. Then, fruits that
could have been on the table of people like Adelia and
Salviano become inaccessible. There are bananas and
oranges left; although, in the current situation, I
believe that, for many people, it is difficult to
guarantee both in the fruit bowl.
There is an aggravating factor in the couple's story:
Salviano is chubby and Adelia is obese. With the naked
eye, we will never see people with nutritional problems
in them. After all, they look well fed. It may seem
strange to many, but there was a time in the country
when being fat was synonymous with opulence, health and
ostentation. A sign that the person had the money to
have a plentiful table and enjoy sumptuous breakfasts,
lunches and dinners. At the same time, being thin was
synonymous with misery, especially when the northeastern
migrant was portrayed in paintings by artists such as
Candido Portinari and in novels such as “O Quinze”, by
Rachel de Queiroz; and “Vidas Secas”, by Graciliano
Ramos. The situation was reversed. Nowadays, those who
have money demonstrate this through a fit body – whether
through physical exercise, balanced diet and
interventions such as liposuction, plastic surgery and
the like. After all, keeping all this is costly. On the
other hand, those who have little money to support
themselves will opt for cheaper food; saturated,
however, with fat, sugar, salt, sodium, etc. and low in
nutrients. We are talking about cookies, white flour,
fried foods, white rice, assorted sweets... It is
overweight due to a diet low in zinc, iron,
beta-carotene, iodine, calcium, vitamins... The result
is obesity and disease such as hypertension, respiratory
failure, in addition to mood swings, muscle contractions
and many other disorders.
A diet devoid of nutrients such as those already
mentioned causes an intermittent hunger that the cakes
and snacks of life cannot satisfy, no matter how much
they are consumed. This phenomenon is called the hidden
hunger syndrome. According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), it is a deficiency “developed in
people who do not eat varied foods in relation to food
groups. Thus, a person can even consume a certain amount
of calories per day, but if the diet does not contain
several nutrients, it will not cause satiety and will
trigger hidden hunger”, as explained by the website
Mundo Educacao in a text entitled “Hidden hunger”.
People who eat this way run the risk, according to the
website, of becoming obese and malnourished, however
paradoxical it may be. It is hunger and its most varied
facets, triggered by the selfishness of powerful men.
In “The Gospel According to Spiritism”, Allan
Kardec, in chapter XIX, item 8, transcribes the Parable
of the Fig Tree that Withered. It is contained in the
New Testament. More precisely, in the Gospel of Mark,
11: 12 to 14, 20 to 23. The parable says that Jesus,
when leaving the city of Bethany with the disciples, was
hungry and went to a fig tree. As it wasn't fig time,
there were only leaves. Jesus then said to the tree,
"Let no one eat any fruit from you." The next day, when
they passed through the place again, the fig tree was
dry.
Jesus, being a chosen Spirit, would not curse a poor
tree because it did not satisfy His hunger. In fact, he
wouldn't curse anything. We are talking about a very
High Spirit that passed through the Earth. He took
advantage of the fact that it was not the season for
figs (and perhaps that the fig tree was already in the
drying process) to show that each and every person,
institution or similar that lives only on brightness and
lacks solidity is doomed to perish. This also concerns,
in my view, a political-economic system that pushes
people to eat profusely in colorful packaging,
attractive names and millionaire advertising campaigns;
poor, however, in content. In short: a degenerated diet
that contributes nothing to physical health. At the same
time, this same system privileges the foreign market
over the children of the land itself. It is as if the
shelves full of superfluous and nutrient-poor products
were orchards of dried fig trees producing hidden hungry
people and potential bearers of illnesses caused by poor
nutrition. Time will take care of drying them and making
trees sprout with fleshy figs, that is, food rich in
nutrients and accessible to all.
And the dried fig tree, oddly enough, is also present in
the color of the fruit section. For what reason?
Because, although tender and inviting, they are
inaccessible to a large part of the population, who
cannot afford an abundant table. A fig tree that dries
up because it is so close and, at the same time, far
from hungry hands for healthy eating. Has anyone here
ever stopped to think how hard it must be for a person
to enter the supermarket, stare at the fruit stands and
resent being unable to take home a good amount of what
is in front of him? Can you imagine how hard it must be
to smell pineapple and not have the money to buy it? The
day will come when these fig trees will be within reach
of all hands. After all, those who are hungry and
thirsty for justice (including social) will be
satisfied.
When I was a child, I played “Pear, grape or apple”.
Depending on the choice, we would get a handshake, a hug
or a kiss from someone who we had chosen at random, as
we had our backs to the other participants. I imagine
Salviano and Adelia entering the market to shop and
having to pick up only the essentials. In the fruit
section, despite the abundance of specimens there are,
they will only take bananas and oranges. I assure you
that the sight, smell, touch and taste of both are
sharpened by the profusion of colors and flavors offered
by the other fruits. For them, however, only bananas and
oranges. Not a pear, not a grape, not an apple. Neither
is papaya, strawberry, peach, pineapple, melon, avocado,
persimmon, mango, watermelon, fig, tangerine...
This subject is not exhausted for me. I will return to
him soon.
Bibliography:
1- SPIRITISTS
ON THE LEFT – Spiritism and fighting hunger. Available
at: click
here
2- KARDEC, Allan – The Gospel According
to Spiritism, 2nd edition, 2018, Brazilian
Spiritist Federation, Brasilia, DF.
3- WORLD
EDUCATION – Hidden hunger. Available at click
here-1
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