Fifty Million Go to Bed Hungry

Killing Foods, Killing People
By JOHN ROSS

"Orlando" (not his real name) eats after everyone else has eaten - if there's enough left over to eat. All day, he scavenges in the garbage cans outside of the three MacDonald's outlets here in the old quarter of the city with an occasional stop-off at KTC. He shows a neighbor his catch of the day: two mostly-eaten Big Macs, a gnawed chicken leg, a handful of stiff, ketchup-flecked French fries, and rubs his greasy belly in delight. Orlando has a hard time pronouncing words in the way others can understand. Most passer-bys studiously step around the filthy, crippled man as he sprawls on the public sidewalk.

Because Orlando has no fixed address, he is not counted on Mexico's official census of the hungry -- and, in fact, he isn't hungry today. As long as more affluent Mexicans continue to supersize themselves at the fast food franchises in the neighborhood, he isn't going to go hungry.

How many Mexicans are going hungry in these days of soaring food prices and diminishing reserves as food crisis sweeps what used to be called the Third World? The rightist government of Felipe Calderon counts 14,000,000 Mexicans living in extreme poverty who are enrolled in its ironically entitled "Oportunidades" (Opportunities) program. Another 12,000,000 at-risk citizens are counted in the administration's equally euphemistic "Vivir Mejor" ("Live Better") bureaucracy - both programs are designed to feed an electoral clientele and do not reflect actual hunger.

LINK TO CON.