Sweetening the Subsidy

The announcement of increase in sugar price and government subsidy of double for this year from about RM200 million to about RM500 million for 2012 is not necessarily helpful in asking BolehLand folks to reduce sugar intake.

Already, we are being told we consume too much sweet things which means sugar content is high. If we go the way as our efforts to promote green technology and also for going 'au naturale' in our food consumption and products we buy, the net effect of reducing sugar intake in all we eat or drink can take effect.

If consumers ask for less sugar or desire less sweet products, manufacturers will heed consumers' demand and this can only be done if we refuse to buy items that remain as sweet as when we were kids drinking that beverage or teh tarik or cakes and local confectioneries and desserts.

Less is more healthy when it comes to sugar intake. One contributing factor to obesity is to lace your food with sugar and you can be sure it will sell faster than if you have those with less sugar. It's ironical even with friends, who spend a fortune on spas and health clubs but down their thirsts and even their sorrows and frustrations at work with a fizzy drink, desserts, cakes or an overpriced sugar laced caffeine concoction!

Will donuts with less sugar or chocolates that are ultra sweet that consuming them is a sure thing to 'death by chocolate' with less sugar sell? 

Let's suppose we don't subsidise the increase in sugar price. The manufacturers and your so called teh tarik and mamak or even caffeine cafe will raise their price and blame it on the 'domino effect'. But if you ask for 'kurang manis' will your favourite drink shop reduce the price? No they won't because while they will tell you, you are their loyal customer and your needs come first, they will not reduce the cost of your fav drink sans the sugar or less of it!

Let's say we all decide not to give in to our conditioning and  being 'drugged' with sugary stuff from infant to become a sugar addict we are now, to instead of ordering our fav teh tarik or grande latte, decide to just ask for plain water or barley water without sugar. Continue with this order long enough and tell the shop fellow you will continue to prefer your 'beverage' this way until he reduces his price of teh tarik or latte, he'd be wiser to at the end of the day give in to the 'natural law of economic theory of 'demand and supply' right? Unless he wants to retaliate by removing the teh tarik or 90% of his caffeine menu from his cafe, he'd probably need to be practical and give in to consumer demand right?

The reason why we are all slaves to our fav mamak or caffeine cafe or cake confectionery supplier is  our lack of will power to go against the 'big players' the monopolists and our weakness to be sucked into the advertisements that entice us to be with the rest of the crowd all sharing the same lifestyle, tastes, brand and what have you! And we are seeking for individuality and complain we are mediocre people hah!

Of course you may think you are the exception ordering just plain water than the fancy fizzy coke or sarsi or sprite huh? But if we think alike and decide we want to be sugarless, it doesn't impinge on you still being the sweet gurl or person right?

There will be those who are not willing to compromise on reducing the sugar level for traditional kuehs or desserts etc. ABC or shaved ice syrup concortion will lose its ABC-ness and take away a gastronomic heritage that is unique to BolehLand right? Cendol will lose its flavour, even satay or your pizza will be so bland noone wants to order it? Some may wonder what has satay and pizza got to do with the price of sugar? For those who have travelled enough and eaten a variety of skewed meats and pizzas would agree that BolehLand tastes for its food is rather on the sweet side, right?

If we complain that less sugar will lose the authenticity of  unique BolehLand cuizines, we'd only need to look around our eateries and wonder why so many fellows are flocking to eat fusion food and menu huh? Of course food is always evolving to suite the taste of customers. Does less sweet or use of sugar alter its character? We are giving up on sharks fin soup and okay with artificial fins. Even vegetarians are happy consuming char siew and chicken compatible veggie versions!

As with life, the power, in this case over sugar, is the 'will power' of consumers to consume less sugar or reduce intake will force manufacturers and producers to be inventive and offer choices that they will buy and ensure they continue in their business.

One may argue that it is like taking salt away from the soy sauce. But then the base ingredient is sugar or soy sauce, you can reduce or use substitute.. The French prefer to use ingredients to add flavour to their dish so too the others we can supposed. In BolehLand, we have the Maggie way or the Aji way to sedapkan or spice up our cuizines.

But like sadly Kodak which is on the verge of fading from history because of changing times and their inability to change, the magge and Aji can likewise also meet their declining influence in our cuisine. It only demands our will power and if we really want to save our money and not complain food prices are on the increase because the government is unwilling to subsides a basic commodity.

Sugar is not necessarily a basic commodity to keep us alive. We have all been addicted to it from young and as adults we can't blame our past anymore can we?

But some will argue better for the government to use the money to keep our life 'sweet' than for that savings to be siphoned off into the pockets of the corrupt and greedy! Well one can't argue with that given our perception of the way the government is assuring its people that corruption is non existence. We can take a bet on that, i.e. corruption is non existence in the government or BolehLand on say, giving up on sugar intake. But then, we'd all be inflicted or die of diabetics earlier and quicker too because we know the government will win anyway, i.e. corruption does exist in the government and BolehLand, hah!

So, it's not a big deal telling us you are subsiding sugar to keep food prices low and prevent the domino effect. It's still handling the symptom than a long term plan. Rather than sweetening the subsidy with this announcement which is rather a convenient timing don't you think, isn't it better to implement programmes to increase our food production locally than depend on imports?

Almost all our sugar is imported. If one can recall, there was a rather ambitious project to be self sufficient in sugar when Negeri Sembilan was selected as a state to have huge sugar plantations to rival the Philippines or South America. Sugar is still grown around the Jelebu and K.Pilah area and also in Johor. Somehow there isn't any sweet stories coming out from such efforts as we still import most of our sugar.

If the sugar story from NS hasn't brought about sweet success, we pray the cows have a better prospects right? No wonder the MP for that area is behaving like a mad 'kera jantan' attacking at anyone for making disparaging remarks of the success of businesses in that part of NS, no? But it would be good to feed the cows with the sugar, at least while Nihoen jin have their Kobe variety, we can have our 'Tebu' variety! Hmm the sweet smell of success don't you think than presently being engulfed in locking horns with opponents on the management of the cows, cowdominum and cowed into a corner by all kinds of alleged improprieties right?

Perhaps the government should not subsidise sugar. Let it increase. After all, 1Malaysia in the past two months have been singing praises of sweet success in all his money giving schemes such a BR1M, KR1M, Menu Rakyat 1Malaysia, Kl1M (Klink 1Malaysia), Kar1sma, 1Maboo?(Book voucher for students) and even billion ringgit infrastructure and MRT projects and also said people are now loving 1Malaysia, UMNO and BN even more and they will continue to stay in power.

So don't subsidise and see the reaction of the people if all you tell us is actually the truth of the matter huh? 

The thing about fan-atics to political parties and leaders is, whatever your leader or party does (same on the Pakatan side) it's all good and no hidden agenda. Even if you leader is allegedly accused of crimes against the order of nature, be it sex or even extinguishing lives, your leader and party are innocent of all allegations.

So if you really say that people love you, they would support even if you don't subsidise sugar too right, or call the election, say next week? After all, if we believe what our leaders are saying, the huge debt they are running for the country is a small matter as noone is complaining, at least not their fan-atics, what's suffering a bit more from sugar price increasing eh?

It's not only individuals and family are going to be in debt. If the government being in a HUGE debt don't seem to worry and still spending billions more, they are showing us the way of what confidence is all about. So, why are we ordinary folks complaining right? Perhaps it has got to do more than paying more for sugar or eating less of it. It's got to do with ordinary people having to WORK HARD to get money and pay taxes versus a  government who WORKS HARD to spend other people's money hah! - YAHMEH!!!