Yes literally. Today I read in news that Pakistan is leading the region in per person annual sugar consumption. On average, every Pakistani is now consuming 25 kilograms of sugar every year. Please take few seconds to think about it. Take your eyes off the monitor and for few seconds imagine what I just wrote….shabash – Teek hai – bilkul Teek – every Pakistani…25 kilograms of sugar….in one year. wow.
Trailing behind Pakistan are other countries of the region like India with 14 kg/person, China with 11 kg/person and Bangladesh with 10 kg/person.
It is expected that in 2009, Pakistan’s sugar demand is going to be 4,350,000 tonnes. Pakistan is expected to produce 3,600,000 tonnes of sugar locally while the rest will have to be imported.
I also want to quote a line from a Urdu daily today which reads like this:
The sweet obsessed Pakistani nation consumes sugar worth of Rs 200 billion annually
The above situation however, does not give us the complete picture of what is currently going on with sugar market in Pakistan.
With the advent of Ramzan, and amidst all rumors of usual sugar hoarding there is a full fledge sugar crisis at hand in Pakistan. I am sure most of our readers are aware of the usual blame game that is going on between Govt and opposition on who is making the most profit. But the reality on street is that price of sugar in retail has hit Rs 52/kilogram in Karachi market and in rest of the country it is even higher. Government is claiming that utility stores will sell sugar for Rs 38/kg but when will it happen, remains to be seen.
Few days ago I was reviewing Shahabnama where it was mentioned that once in Ayub Khan’s time sugar shortage happened. Ayub Khan’s agriculture minister in those days was A. Hoti who overnight got the laqab of cheeni chor (sugar thief) from the public. Where ever this Minister went people used to shout ‘cheeni chor cheeni chor’. It is said that Minister actually took the title to heart and remedied the situation by going against sugar hoarders. Times have changed. Today I think any protest like this will not even ‘move a lice on the ear’ (kan pe jooN rengna) of any Minister.
So as I see it we have two issues at hand. While government needs to come hard on sugar hoarders and official planners who couldn’t foresee an impending shortage before hand, we as a nation also need to cut down on our ‘cheeni’ (sugar – not Chinese) consumption.
Did I also mention yet that same news which talked about 25kg/yr number also claimed that every 5th Pakistani is diabetic. While I cannot confirm this number, you can see the direct connection between the two phenomena. 25kg sugar = 0.2×178 = 35.6 million diabetic patients in Pakistan. wow.
I’ll close this post on this famous Urdu idiom:
meetha meetha hup hup, kaRwa kaRwa thoo thoo (sweet attraction, bitter repulsion)
Sugar Trivia:
Despite Pakistan’s enormous sugar consumption we still lag other regions like North America where annual sugar consumption is 38 kg/per person. Oceania including Australia is 45 kg/person and in South America annual sugar consumption is 46.5 kg/person.
References:
1. Pride News
2. Pakistan Sugar Annual Report 2009
3. Trends in Global Sugar Consumption
Photo Credits: Murad Ali Shah and ZAK!
Owais bhai! Your saying that there is a cause and effect relationship between sugar consumption and diabetes, which is not true. There is no direct correlation between diabetes and eating sweet food. Diabetes is a disease in which body does not produce insulin or properly use insulin to convert foot into energy
Besides the dessert that is must after every meal, I think the maximum consumption of sugar that happens in our daily lives and goes unaccounted for is the amount of chamach of sugar we have in our chais… at home and the workplace..
So chai to sab sey pehlay band karo sab kee..
I am wondering.. I am not the person who has the sweet tooth.. then where is my 25kgs worth sugar going..
I am just imaging all the taste buds being stimulated almost all the time, `chronically
so this is the secret behind Mr. Zardari’s all
occasion smile, sugar rush or $ 60 million release in swiss account :)
When I think of 25 kilos of sugar it is kind of disgusting.
Although I am not giving up on gulab jamuns.
But seriously, the sugar crisis is just a reminder of the costs of this.
Not to mention the health costs.