# Food problem reducing for poor people - or not



## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

About OTHER Filipinos than the tribes living in mountains:

A Filipina lived rural as kid but living in Puero Princesa CITY now found recently during covid a big crab at beach so they got party :thumb: arty:

I don't know if it's common in the Philippines but in e g Thailand when foreigers run away when seeing a snake, then Thai run too but to get a stick to catch a snake as dinner :thumb: 
A close to 40yo Thai woman grown up in rural village told me that's so common there so she had seen only 2 alive snakes in her whole life around her village! 
(Although basicly it's a country with a lot of snakes. In same region there is a village known for having "fights" between a snake and a human, the human NOT using any weapon they just block or try to avoid being biten. Kids fight against not venamous snakes but bites hurt, while grown ups REALY fight against venamous snakes which can be seen at deformation injuries at survivors.)

I know of a few Filipinos forage some wild growing food (as ginger and turmeric) but it seem very rare even during covid!!! 
A Filipina I know complain often they are hungry, which they sure are often. I told her before covid too to go to the mountain forest/djungle to look for food including telling her what food can be there, but she find it to far although it's just less than 1000meters to the biger mountains!!! But I know that's very far in Filipino messure :heh: 

Some small groups of Americans were droped in remote parts of the Philippines in a surviving reality TV. One group walked just at the beach starving saying
-No food here... 
:loco:
while a neighbour group found rather much food both in djungle and from sea... 
(Swedish "Survivor/Robinson" were recorded a few years ago at islands belonging to El Nido, Palawan, but that's not normal surviving, it's more about "surviving" some idiots in the big groups :heh:

During warm season in Sweden I have foraged a lot of food even from I were only 7yo, leaving at mornings and didn't need to go home for lunch by eating what I found in the forest. As grown up I have halfed my food costs during warn season just by picking things I like, spending 2 hours or so at good weather days, make the freezer full too. 
There are many MORE wild growing food types in Phils than in Sweden...

What's your experiences of Filipinos trying to forage - or not ?


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## cvgtpc1 (Jul 28, 2012)

My opinion is everything has been picked clean that can be by decades of poverty. If it's anywhere in close proximity to people its gone. Even the neighbor's farm is up for grabs if not guarded. Ever notice how you don't see birds flitting around all over like in the West?


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

A filipino will eat anything with legs except the table. Have you noticed how little road kill there is.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

cvgtpc1 said:


> If it's anywhere in *close proximity* to people


 I have noticed before many Filipinos count close as very far 

E g I asked a Filipina:
-How deep is the river at your village during dry period?
-??? No river at our river.
-But it's a river where the road behind your village ends.
-Oh that river! That's faaar away.
It's 200 meters from their house in the middle of the villaga... :heh:
That very poor family take tricycle 400 meters when they have money. That's same distance as I have to my mailbox...  

So I wonder if they have checked for food more than just close to roads?
The ccomplainiing Filipina, I talked about im the start post, haven't even went to look!


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

I am living near the sea and yet see lots of locals buying canned fish.


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## M.C.A. (Feb 24, 2013)

People don't exactly forage in our region of Laguna but they do hang out by the lake and fish with nets or wait for the boats that carry the tiny lake shells and they eat the shells daily, (it's free) like a soup with ginger or the small Candule (cat fish) that gets caught up in the nets they make into adobo.

I live next to the In-laws we are all on family squatted land and over the years I've learned how to plant gabi (taro root) and so it wasn't until the older brother passed away that I noticed I was growing gabi roots because up until then I never had much if any roots and it turns out that the dog barking late at night was because they were taking the roots, my wife tells me he has the grand kids do the dirty work... so ha haa I guess they were foraging after all ha ha. Now that he's gone this year was boom on taro roots, I ended up giving a bag of taro roots to all family members, I sold some and eat the rest. 

I've planted much more this year and might plant some more, it's not an easy job either, it's hard work the soil next to the water is full of garbage, rope, nets, plastic, shoes/sandals and it's a challenge to dig every single hole so when someone helps themselves it sort of hurts, especially when they have their own land to plant on.


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## cvgtpc1 (Jul 28, 2012)

M.C.A. said:


> People don't exactly forage in our region of Laguna but they do hang out by the lake and fish with nets or wait for the boats that carry the tiny lake shells and they eat the shells daily, (it's free) like a soup with ginger or the small Candule (cat fish) that gets caught up in the nets they make into adobo.
> 
> I live next to the In-laws we are all on family squatted land and over the years I've learned how to plant gabi (taro root) and so it wasn't until the older brother passed away that I noticed I was growing gabi roots because up until then I never had much if any roots and it turns out that the dog barking late at night was because they were taking the roots, my wife tells me he has the grand kids do the dirty work... so ha haa I guess they were foraging after all ha ha. Now that he's gone this year was boom on taro roots, I ended up giving a bag of taro roots to all family members, I sold some and eat the rest.
> 
> I've planted much more this year and might plant some more, it's not an easy job either, it's hard work the soil next to the water is full of garbage, rope, nets, plastic, shoes/sandals and it's a challenge to dig every single hole so when someone helps themselves it sort of hurts, especially when they have their own land to plant on.


Our watermelon crop was foraged a couple years ago.


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

cvgtpc1 said:


> Our watermelon crop was foraged a couple years ago.


Yes we have lost bits and pieces. They often don't just take one or two pieces for their own use but strip the whole crop to sell.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

I don't count snatching at farmfields as "foraging" although that's typical dishonest LAZY people 
I mean go to look for WILD growing things.


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## Tukaram (Dec 18, 2014)

Manitoba said:


> I am living near the sea and yet see lots of locals buying canned fish.


My wife prefers canned, or dried, fish. Easier to prepare. Cleaning fish is messy ha ha


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

Tukaram said:


> My wife prefers canned, or dried, fish. Easier to prepare. Cleaning fish is messy ha ha


I come from a rural farming area., There having a garden and growing at least some of your own veggies is not only common but something people are proud of. From mid summer to well into fall, we never bought fresh veggies, when my in laws were still active on the farm we had our years supply of potatoes and root veggies, put away in a cold room and buying those was just about unheard of. We also had a separate freezer just for chickens, often we would have 30 or so frozen so a roast chicken on Sundays from the farm was the normal deal. The other freezer had half a pig and lots of frozen berries, tomato etc.

Lots of people hunt and fish, serving a guest a meal completely of your own harvest, from the garden and the lake or forest was something people did as a special occasion. No shame in that, in fact people were proud of the accomplishment.

Here it seams that planting your own veggies, raising your own livestock is a matter of shame, something only poor people will do because they cannot afford store bought. I can see it in the cities where there is no available land but in the provinces, space is available and yet I see lots of yards with space to have a garden not having one or growing non edible plants.

It is like walking someplace, the only reason why people will walk is that they cannot afford the few peso fro a ride. I like to walk about 10 km a day and get lots of looks when I do so.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Manitoba said:


> Here it seams that planting your own veggies, raising your own livestock is a matter of shame, something only poor people will do because they cannot afford store bought.


 Or it depend of lazyness 
In Sweden it's the opposite - shame to be lazy - among older than born at the 1990-ties generation. Many of the younger don't want to work, they want to be famous by something NOT hard to do as being in some crazy reality TV or making silly videos posted at youtube :heh:



Manitoba said:


> I can see it in the cities where there is no available land but in the provinces, space is available and yet I see lots of yards with space to have a garden not having one or growing non edible plants.


 The Filipina I mensioned, who don't even walk to look, live in city, but in suburb closest to a huge forest/djungle.
They have some space to grow, but they didn't. Finaly they plamted a malunggay tree after I had told them for years. (A cup per day of fresh malunggay leaves covers almost all nutrisions someone related to leader of a prison in Viet-Nam had thought, so that prison started growing much themselves before covid to avoid the malnutrision problem they had before. Scientists in Taiwan say similar but I haven't seen amount told by them.) 
Perhaps they found it less tireding to plant it than hearing me repeet it :heh:

In Sweden lumber trees are planted almost everythere when the land isn't used for something else so now around 2/3 of Sweden is forest (and in such forest grow much eatable things as e g berries and muchroms.) 
While A LOT of rural land in poor Philippines are UNUSED!!! CRAZY - and lazy...
The Philippines has much BETTER growth than cold Sweden, so there can trees be ready for harvesting 2-4 times faster (depening of tree types) than in Sweden, but many Filipinos don't plant anyway!!! 



Manitoba said:


> It is like walking someplace, the only reason why people will walk is that they cannot afford the few peso fro a ride. I like to walk about 10 km a day and get lots of looks when I do so.


My 86 yo mother walk at least 1 km per day just for exersise.
When I tell that to Filipinos they get shocked. One Filipina said she would die if she would try to walk 500 meters 


So I still believe there are a lot of wild growing food to be foraged in the Philippines if just walk longer...


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

People live everywhere so any walk to forage will take you onto someone else's patch. My wife's grandfather used to hurt boar etc in the jungle but there's no longer any real jungle anymore. It will be owned by someone.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Gary D said:


> People live everywhere so any walk to forage will take you onto someone else's patch. My wife's grandfather used to hurt boar etc in the jungle but there's no longer any real jungle anymore. It will be owned by someone.


At Palawan there are rather much wilderness in the mountains and some other places where no roads go. 
Both American and Swedish surviving programs have been recorded there.

And there are kind of abandoned farms by they are so remote so people seldom bother to go there. I know of three such just at Cebu island. (One of them is a partly mango orchard lost by being collateral for unpaid loan and the new owner don't bother about it. And the other two belong to a family where the farmers are to old and the younger generations have moved to cities. They have offered me to buy two of their lands cheap by they don't use them and they are remote one of them very remote.) I suppouse there are some eatable things there.

Although concerning farms not in use by farmers being to old to do the body work themselves and had problem to get farm workers, some of theese farms have become in use again BY COVID make more people become without work >without money > short of food. I know of a family with only one old living there still having several farmlands, which they didn't use more than a tiny part of by they didn't got workers to earlier, but now they have got a bunch. Although still some short. They can't just employ city people by they are to weak/lazy  but perhaps some younger move back rural by they are outof work in city. (I don't know of any such moving back, just one who think of doing so.)


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## fmartin_gila (May 15, 2011)

Tukaram said:


> My wife prefers canned, or dried, fish. Easier to prepare. Cleaning fish is messy ha ha


Tim, We have 2 fish vendors that come around so we always have fresh fish but my wife makes them clean them or she won't buy so they take the mess with them when they go. Probably pays a premium price but we always have good fresh fish.

Fred


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

I'm only interested in decent fillets (hard to get here unless frozen imported) but Ben, occasionally me also eat bony fish and I hate the fight along with the fear of unwittingly swallowing a bone. Ben also eats dried fish and when he is preparing/cooking I sit outside and when we eat I have leftover Sinigang etc. Can't stomach dried fish.
We have Guava, bananas, pumpkin, bamboo shoots, calamansi, mandarin, mangoes, avocados, tomatoes, cucumber, okra, ginger, some stupid plums that are only good to harvest for 2 to 3 weeks, our biggest problem are the goats, not thieves and airsoft has now sorted them out.

We have a vacant block next door, 1640M2 with good soil and grows trees and weeds, the owner (selling, is very accomodating to all) nobody asks if they can use part or all of her land for crops, there is a deep well that needs recommissioning but not expensive for water. The locals come in from the beach and cut wood for their cooking fires,,,,,,,, seems a waste of a resource.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve.


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## Cebu Citizen (Dec 13, 2013)

Manitoba said:


> I come from a rural farming area., There having a garden and growing at least some of your own veggies is not only common but something people are proud of. From mid summer to well into fall, we never bought fresh veggies, when my in laws were still active on the farm we had our years supply of potatoes and root veggies, put away in a cold room and buying those was just about unheard of. We also had a separate freezer just for chickens, often we would have 30 or so frozen so a roast chicken on Sundays from the farm was the normal deal. The other freezer had half a pig and lots of frozen berries, tomato etc.
> 
> Lots of people hunt and fish, serving a guest a meal completely of your own harvest, from the garden and the lake or forest was something people did as a special occasion. No shame in that, in fact people were proud of the accomplishment.
> 
> ...


I have the same problem Manitoba...I walk every morning, seven days a week, unless it is a heavy downpour, and I usually walk eight to ten kilometers at a minimum just to get some fresh air and exercise...but EVERYDAY, I either get crazy looks like, "why" is that foreigner walking and not driving a car...or else I have tricycle drivers always stopping and ask me if I need a ride...and when people see my wife and I working out in our garden, they look at us as if we are poor and cannot buy food!

It's as if the Filipino people have a mixed up way of viewing things...

Just like the country here...All around the World, people are craving to live in some exotic tropical paradise, wild untamed mountainous jungles, sprawling white sand beaches, palm trees swaying in the breeze, endless turquoise water...and then you come here and the people living here can't wait to get out of here and go live in some dirty inner city!


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Cebu Citizen said:


> It's as if the Filipino people have a mixed up way of viewing things...
> 
> Just like the country here...All around the World, people are craving to live in some exotic tropical paradise, wild untamed mountainous jungles, sprawling white sand beaches, palm trees swaying in the breeze, endless turquoise water...and then you come here and the people living here can't wait to get out of here and go live in some dirty inner city!


Or cover it with painted concrete.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Gary D said:


> Or cover it with painted concrete.


 (Before covid) I did read somewhere the Philippines is the only SE Asian country which need to import rice.
It become worse by big part of house developments are made at *good riceland*!!!


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Lunkan said:


> It become worse by big part of house developments are made at *good riceland*!!!


It hasn't been allowed by law for a few years now, but we all know how much notice of the law is taken.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

Cebu Citizen said:


> .......
> Just like the country here...All around the World, people are craving to live in some exotic tropical paradise, wild untamed mountainous jungles, sprawling white sand beaches, palm trees swaying in the breeze, endless turquoise water.........


I have always thought that the Philippines was a great place to live if you did not have to make your money here or really live as a part of the community. The corruption, crab mentality and overall pettiness will drag people back down.

As expats with outside income we can enjoy the good that is here while avoiding most of the bad.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Manitoba said:


> I have always thought that the Philippines was a great place to live if you did not have to make your money here or really live as a part of the community. The corruption, crab mentality and overall pettiness will drag people back down.
> 
> As expats with outside income we can enjoy the good that is here while avoiding most of the bad.


Yes, that's a big probllem, but I plan to start a new business in the Philippines anyway, because I think of what wife and kids - and grandkids  - can live of after I have died. IF I manage to build a profitable enough business and IF I manage to teach them how to handle it. If so, much money can be saved at they will not need college/university exams  if they chose to join the family business.


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