Chapter 18 2. The Chinese are not satisfied with eating with their stomachs open

There used to be such a famous saying printed on the grain purchase books in cities and on the walls of rural farmhouses in many places: "Eat dry when you are busy, eat thin when you are free, mixed with melons, vegetables, and sweet potatoes..." This is the instruction given by Comrade Mao Zedong to the eating standards of Chinese people. Reading this passage now, there is still a sense of intimacy like the earnest teaching of a kind parent.This fully reflects the meticulous concern of the leaders of the republic for the lives of the people. The food problem of the Chinese people weighed heavily on his shoulders, and he had to spend a lot of time thinking, researching, and finding solutions.

And "eat dry food when you are busy, eat thin food when you are free", and "mixed with melons, vegetables and sweet potatoes", it was really a helpless move at that time.It is difficult for the leader himself to strictly follow this too low standard of survival.In order to keep a clear head and think about China's line, guidelines, and policies, and to maintain the workload of more than ten hours a day, he often yells to the guards and soldiers, saying that he needs to eat some braised pork to "replenish his brain." A bowl of braised pork is far from a luxury for the leader of a country, but he takes it very seriously because, in front of him, there are thousands of people in Li who cannot eat braised pork.

Once, he had a sudden idea on the special train: "Notice to stop. I want to go to that village to see, I want to ask for a bowl of braised pork, see if I can get it?" The result naturally disappointed him.This made him realize that it is not easy to feed hundreds of millions of people, and it is even more difficult to make braised pork available to hundreds of millions of people. He often talked about what the peasants eat: "Are we socialist? Our peasants shouldn't eat corn bread! They shouldn't..." He sometimes knocked on the rice bowl containing red brown rice and millet and said: "If farmers all over the country can eat rice like mine, it will be good..."

Not only to feed the Chinese people, but also to eat well, this is a colorful dream of the leader of the republic.And now, this dream needs to be turned into reality by us. Comrade Mao Zedong left his people with deep regret.Although he has made brilliant achievements in solving the food problem of the Chinese people, he has not fulfilled his wish of making his people eat well and nutritiously. It is a daunting task for his successor to keep the people well fed and well fed. When the people of a country have basically solved the problem of having enough to eat, they will inevitably demand to eat better, more refined, and more nutritious, which will inevitably put forward new requirements for our food consumption.

Nutrients needed by the human body include proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, trace elements, etc.Measuring people's food composition level is based on the amount of energy and protein provided in the diet.The human body needs not only vegetable fat and protein, but also animal protein and fat for food nutrition.Protein is a nitrogen-containing organic compound composed of several amino acids, and is the basic substance of various tissue cells in the human body.However, the protein content of animal foods is more than 70% higher than that of cereal foods, and the amino acids contained in animal proteins are reasonable and relatively complete, and are easily absorbed by the human body. Therefore, animal foods must account for a certain amount of food in a reasonable dietary consumption structure. proportion.

The ancestor of our socialism, Marx, discovered this problem more than a century ago. He said: "If you don't eat meat, people will not develop to this point." Linking meat-eating with the development of human society shows the importance of this issue. We have already introduced before that eating food directly, we call it direct consumption of food, that is, filling the stomach, it is the basis of a person's survival.The food problem that China has struggled to solve for thousands of years is basically at this stage.Only in the mid-to-late 1980s, both the Chinese government and the Chinese people were making conscious or unconscious efforts to increase the indirect consumption of food.This is the consumption of animal-based food.The "braised pork" that Comrade Mao Zedong was very interested in belongs to this category.It is after raising animals with grain, human beings eat animal meat to consume grain indirectly.

As people transform from being full to eating well, the nutrition provided by animal foods will exceed the nutrition provided by direct food consumption. That is to say, the food people consume indirectly may exceed the food consumed directly. Throughout the history of world development, we have found that the consumption of animal food is basically in direct proportion to the development of the economy.In economically developed countries, people consume more animal foods, or in other words, animal foods account for a relatively large proportion of the food structure. The consumption of animal food in China has been at a relatively low level for a long time. In 1952, the per capita pork consumption was 5.9 kilograms, less than half a kilogram per month.Due to the large number of people and the lack of "meat", planned supply was generally implemented across the country at that time, and each Chinese was allocated about four or five city taels of pork every month.Until 1978, the annual per capita consumption of pork was only 7.67 kg, and it was only 0.6 kg per month. It was probably just an occasional order of fatty meat, fried in oil, and meat.Therefore, Comrade Mao Zedong was very regretful at that time. The Chinese people who started the revolution with him could not even eat a bowl of braised pork all year round.

In 1979, the reform and opening-up policy greatly increased people's income. Not only did people directly consume more food, which basically solved the problem of food and clothing in the whole country, but also increased meat consumption by a large margin.Braised pork has lost its allure in most families, and families that eat meat at every meal and eat meat every meal can be found everywhere.According to statistics, in 1980, per capita meat consumption reached 11.2 kg; in 1985, it was 13.9 kg; in 1987, it was 14.5 kg; in 1988, it was 14.9 kg; 43 million tons, 35.8 kg per capita. In 1997, my country's per capita meat consumption reached 50 kilograms, 4.5 times that of 1980.In addition, my country's per capita possession of eggs is 17 kg and milk is 6.6 kg.

In such a short period of time, China's meat consumption has increased so much, which is unmatched by many countries at the same development stage.In fact, in terms of per capita GDP, my country is still a low-income economically underdeveloped country, but in terms of food consumption quantity and quality, my country has reached or exceeded the world average level.According to expert calculations, since 1978, my country's food consumption and nutrition levels have been greatly improved. In 1995, the average daily calorie supply per person reached 11.4098 million joules, protein and fat reached 70 grams and 52 grams respectively, which was higher than countries with the same per capita GNP and reached the world average level.The world average is 70.9 grams of protein and 67.5 grams of fat per person per day.Of course, some developed countries are much higher than this level.Like the United States, the food contains 109.9 grams of protein and 154.4 grams of fat per person per day; France is 112.9 grams and 167.1 grams respectively, and Italy is 107.4 grams and 145.8 grams respectively.However, China, a large country with a population of more than 1.2 billion, can not only solve the problem of food and clothing with enough direct consumption of grain in such a short period of time, but also improve the dietary structure and nutritional level with the increase of meat consumption. improvement, which is difficult to achieve in many countries.

Therefore, in China today, what people care about is not whether there is something to eat, but what to eat.In the past, when Chinese people met, the first greeting was "Have you eaten?" Now, it needs to be corrected to "What have you eaten?" The substantial increase in meat food consumption is the result of the significant improvement in people's living standards in the past 20 years of China's reform and opening up. an important symbol. However, compared with some developed countries, our meat level still has a big gap.As early as 1985, the per capita meat consumption in the United States was 69.6 kilograms, and that in the former Soviet Union was 61.4 kilograms. By 1997, my country's meat consumption had only reached 50 kilograms.In my country, the daily protein provided by meat products to each person is less than 30% of food protein, while in the United States, the daily protein provided by meat products to each person is 69.3 grams, accounting for 66.4% of food protein.In addition, France is 70.4 grams, Germany is 64.3 grams, the United Kingdom is 51.2 grams, and the world average is 22.4 grams.

In my country's current grain consumption structure, direct consumption still occupies a major position.my country's per capita direct food consumption far exceeds that of the United States, Britain, France, Japan and other developed countries. According to estimates, my country is 3.7 times that of the United States, 1.6 times that of the former Soviet Union, and 1.8 times that of Japan. From this point of view, my country still has a large room for improvement in the indirect consumption of grain, which means greater pressure in terms of grain production.