Food Consumption Patterns Part 2

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Entrance of Snack Foods
Manufactured snack foods are a recent phenomenon. The “snack” food market two and three
decades past was almost entirely artisanal, comprised of those foods seen in the previous section.
The prepackaged industrial foods that popular class Haitians in their 30s and 40s and 50s remember
from childhood were condensed milk, cheese cubes, and salted crackers. Today is radically
different: 91% of adults report eating prepackaged cookies, crackers, and cheese puffs (Figure
14), 53% of these people eat them at least once per day (Figure 15); 78% buy them for their
children (Figure 16) and 44% of them buy them for their children at least once per day (Figure 17).
The new snack foods are purchased far more frequently than other non-staple imported foods, such
as milk, cheese, peanut butter, and bread. In the boutik survey, 49% of shop owners reported that
the most non-staple food items that adults most frequently purchased were cookies, cheese puffs,
or salted crackers. In the case of children, 75% of the top sellers were cookies, cheese puffs, hard
candy, chewing gum or lollipops (Table 21).
It is no secret, even to many Haitians, that these foods are made of low quality ingredients. What
they do not know is that the foods are composed of products deliberately stripped of nutrient—
nutrients that are then be resold in other forms, typically as ingredients in higher quality foods
destined for more elite consumers. In developed countries the extent to which manufacturers
exploit the process is limited through state regulation
and inspection. For example, in the United States,
corporations that advertise as “milk” concoctions that
have no animal milk in them have come under fire, been
sued, fined, and forced o relabel the products so that
consumers are aware of the substitution and/or
modification of the word “milk.” Nothing of the sort
applies in Haiti and as discussed in greater detail
shortly, even the cheese cubs and condensed milk that
Haitians have come to expect are sources of nutrition,
have been increasingly supplemented with the same
low quality ingredients found in crackers and cookies.
Photo 43: Street boutik prepackaged
ready-to-eat foods of Cape Haitian
Photo 44: bak vendor, note the
milk cans at on top
Photo 45: Condensed milk for
sale ‘it’s not just milk
anymore’
Photo 46: Street foods on the
left, some of the new
prepackaged ready-to-eat
snacks on right