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ROAST FAT: Mutton flaps are killing world's most obese country-TONGA

19/1/2016

9 Comments

 
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TONGA is the most obese country in the world. Up to 40% of the population is thought to have type 2 diabetes and life expectancy is falling. One of the main causes is a cheap, fatty kind of meat - mutton flaps - imported from New Zealand.

With a stern expression crossing her face, 82-year-old Papiloa Bloomfield Foliaki almost leaps from her seat to show us something she says will help us understand.

She comes back into the sitting room of her small hotel in Nuku A'Lofa, Tonga's capital, brandishing a large model of an ancient wooden boat.

"We Tongans rowed here, across thousands and thousands of miles of sea, in boats like these. Then we flipped them over and used the old boats as houses."

She frowns. "But, nobody wants Tongan houses any more, because something Western, something modern, people think is better, people associated Tongan style of homes with poverty.

"Just like with our food."

The traditional Tongan diet is fish, root vegetables and coconuts, as you might expect for a palm-fringed island in the middle of the Pacific.

But at some point in the middle of the 20th Century, offcuts of meat began arriving in the Pacific islands - including turkey tails from the US and mutton flaps from New Zealand.

They were cheap and became hugely popular.

"People think something imported is superior," says Foliaki, a former nurse, activist and politician, who now works in the hotel business, despite being one of few Tongans over the age of 80.

"And you have a situation where fishermen spear their fish - sell it - and go and buy mutton flaps. People don't have the education to know what is bad for their health."

What are mutton flaps?
  • The low-quality end of a sheep's rib - connected to the high-quality ribs and spare ribs - also known as breast
  • Every 100g includes approximately 40g fat (half of it saturated fat) and contains 420 calories
  • Flaps make up 9-12% of a sheep's carcass by weight, but only 3-5 % by value
  • In the Pacific, they are sometimes the only cut of the animal found on sale
  • New Zealand and Australia sell large quantities of mutton flaps to China, Mexico and African countries
  • In Europe they are used in doner kebabs
Source: Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington, authors of Flap Food Nations in the Pacific Islands

In 1973, 7% of the population were suffering from non-communicable disease - a phrase that has come to be used as synonymous with diabetes in Tonga. By 2004 the figure was 18%. It is now 34% according to the Tongan Health Ministry, though some think the figure could be as high as 40%.

"There's this whole generation in Tonga that was brought up on mutton flaps," says Sunia Soakai, a health planning officer for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

"Mutton flaps are the discarded parts of the lamb that are not fit for consumption in New Zealand. They were able to dump this stuff on the Pacific countries."

Tongan fishermen still catch fish by spear, mostly at night, returning well before dawn.

Customers who want the best of the catch come down to meet them off the boat. Others can turn up at the little fish market in the port's car park later in the morning. Source: BBC World News

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9 Comments
Bahuki
20/1/2016 12:54:21 am

A real shame that the pacific is a common dumping ground for those flaps apart from the places mentioned in this article, and Fiji is no different either.

Reply
Rajend Naidu
20/1/2016 09:17:07 pm

Many years ago I wrote an article for the Fiji Medical Practitioners Journal in which among other things I highlighted how these high fat low quality meat was adversely impacting on the health and we'll- being of the island people of the Pacific, particularly the poor and it's implications on state welfare and other services. For my effort I was charged under the Official Secrets Act by the shit bureaucrats at the Department of Social Welfare where I worked then and by that equally shitty first coup ring leader of sorts - Alipate Qetaki who was a politically appointed PS then.

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Bahuki
21/1/2016 04:45:53 am

A real shame that they muzzled your freedom of speech and expression when you were just doing your job.

I'm sure that article of yours made a whole lot more sense than those unfortunate idiots during your time there who accused you of something quite harmless and informative to others, except them.

Silent Killer
20/1/2016 01:25:37 am

True. What is killing Fijians are chemicals which chinese commercial farmers are pumping into the vegetables and the poultry industry bigshots pumping into chicken. Slowly but surely those in the habit of frozen chicken produced in Fiji and vegetables produced by Chinese farmers are dying. Notice the boobs in males borne after 1980 - thank the frozen chicken industry.

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Vili
20/1/2016 09:24:12 am

Ok....it was the 'Indian threat' up until 1987 and all the convulsions that followed.

Now you expect us to believe that it is the Chinese to blame for what we put in our mouths?

Why do we keep blaming foreigners for all our problems?

Why cant we take responsibility for ourselves?

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Silent Killer
20/1/2016 10:12:58 am

Those like us in the know, know that what Indians use in vegetables is nothing compared to what the Chinese farmers use. Poultry bigshots are all foreigners. Just check health requirements in Aust where these come from and see what they pump in in Fijian chicken. Our local regulators and policy makers are asleep and whose awake in the pockets of the foreigners. So ultimate blame is on locals. Even the PS Agri, well, auditor general said he is a fraudster, so we cant expect anything out of him.

Oeilei..
20/1/2016 06:57:42 am

Ratu Ului has to look out for his back-side in Tonga too.

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Yummy!
20/1/2016 11:03:36 am

Bloody lamb flaps taste really nice in lovo. Cooks in its own fat. Tender meat falling of the bone.

To some degree, we responsible for what we put in our months. If Tongan govt really cared, they would have banned the fatty meat in the first place, given it's a major health hazard. Follow the money to see what is really happening.

Time to grow up and take responsibility rather than blame others all the time.


Reply
Pita
20/1/2016 11:04:45 pm

Lawrence Tikaram and his CocaCola Company with their fizz drinks is one of the biggest contributors to childhood obesity and the rise of diabetes and heart disease in Fiji

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