A Meal Out Of Strangers Leftover (Pagpag): A Nauseating Reality Among The Poorest Of The Poor

Disgusting to many but a blessing to some. That's what this staple food is about. It seems unimaginable to think that what you have left from a fastfood restaurant is what becomes the meal for the lucky mambabatchoy who gets to find your leftover. Mambabatchoy is a person who scavenge leftover food from the garbage. They are called mambabatchoy because the term pagpag also refers to batchoy, from the Filipino dish of the same name.

Hiding behind the veil of the booming and prospering Cities in the National Capital Region of the Philippines is the sad reality that some people get to eat and survive from the trash of the more fortunate ones.

Particularly located in Tondo, Manila, "PagPag" has become a thriving business. Pagpag locally means shaking off the dust or dirt. Meaning, you have to shake off the dirt from the edible portion of the leftovers usually from fastfood chains. The process of pagpag is quite disgusting but the people doing it doesn't have a choice in order to live. It's an act of survival among people consuming it. Once the truck carrying the trash arrives, mambabatchoy will then separate the recyclable materials like plastic cups, spoons, cartoons, etc. from the foods they find consumable throwing the spoiled ones.

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It has become a common practice in that particular area, to segregate foods from other waste then sell it, if not, re-cook it for the family to consume. A bag of pagpag only costs 20 pesos to 30 pesos which means for that small amount a mom can feed her children. A person gets to earn roughly 200 pesos from selling pagpag and the demand in high in the area that it can be sold quite easily.

These leftovers are recycled by washing off the dirt and sometimes taking out the bones, though most often the bones are included. After that, they let it boil in the water before re-cooking it to their desired menu. They are quiet convinced that as long as they prepare and cook it well, they will be safe.

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But if you think about it, the health issue is very high. Just the thought of giving your leftover food ( and I don't mean the one's left untouched) but the remnants of the chicken you haven't been able to finished to somebody else is quite inhuman. How much more those that are mixed up with all other trash? They didn't even know if the one eating it have terminal illness or something and they're feeding it to their children nonetheless. Getting diseases like Hepatitis A, typhoid, diarrhea, and cholera is too damn high.

Despite the warnings from the government, the act of eating pagpag thrives as they claim that no one has died yet from eating it though some got sick with diarrhea.

Knowing these, I can't help but envy the Dumpster Diving done by @Reko in Sweden. The stuff that he gets from the dumpster is way too good to be called trash. How great would it be if even half of what his stash looks are the called trash here in the Philippines?

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Again, I want to thank @surpassinggoogle @bayanihan and @qurator for the ever support on my posts.

And thank you guys for visiting and reading my post. Let's keep steemin'!