Food Consumption Patterns Part 2

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All labouyi (porridge) was broken into its constituent milk and whatever else they
identified. But this should come with a caveat because very poor people, or people who are
suffering hard times, may not use milk
The importance of milk may also be underrepresented. Often respondents said coffee and
milk or cornflakes and milk. And often when respondents said coffee or chocolate they
may not have mentioned milk but, we assume from ethnographic experience, that it is, as
with porridges, implied. Similar, even though not specified in the lists, all foods for babies
of an age greater than neonate we assumed based on from interviews to be fortified with
milk
Almost all mentions of plantain are green plantains. Most mentions of bananas refer to ripe
bananas
Sweet manioc vs. bitter manioc is an important distinction. Baby foods are made of sweet
manioc. Yet, the distinction was overlooked in the data gathering and simply noted as
manioc
Also, most misleading in the category of baby foods is that all starches were flour, farin,
many of them made from local products such as arrowroot. Sometimes they are store
bought and packaged. But often they are homemade. No distinction was made between
homemade and store-bought
Regarding juice, any starch (starchy vegetable or grain) was identified by the named starch
combined with milk and, although we left sugar out of the list, it should be understood that
they often add sugar.
Sugar and edible oil are not adequately represented in the summary of foods. Nevertheless,
noting the sugar and edible oil rule—wherever they can be added the most possible is
added—we have emphasized their conspicuous role in the diet as a constant.
All varieties of plantain were lumped under the single category of plantain. This was done
despite the fact that a variety of plantain called kiyez in the North West of Haiti, pobon in
Cape Haitian and ## in Port-au-Prince, is considered the most nutritious type of plantain
and consistently distinguished from other plantain varieties as a baby food and fortifying
for ill adults and children.
There are dimensions of food preparation not adequately captured in this phase of the
research but that will be pursued in greater depth during the next phase of the study.
Specifically, foods are kole (embedded), pure (blended), they can also be graje (grated),
and pile (smashed). In those categories discussed below we captured how foods are cooked
(fried, boiled and sautéed) but we generally omitted the dimension of how they are prepared
or transformed for consumption.
Another dimension that we emphasize in the following analysis but that can and will be
taken farther in the subsequent inquiry are foods that go together. For example, a rule is
that all grains should have black beans either embedded in them or poured over them as a