Official statistics reveal that Chinese annual per capita meat consumption, at 53 kilograms, is almost twice that of Iran’s 34 kilograms.
Gholamreza Mesbahimoghaddam, the head of the Infrastructure and Production Commission in Iran’s Expediency Council and former parliament member, recently faced severe criticism for his contentious comments attributing China’s economic success to their satisfaction with minimal food consumption.
“The Chinese satisfy themselves with just one or two meals a day,” Mesbahimoghaddam said, an attempt to justify Iranians’ increasing hardship as a path to economic progress.
This statement sparked a backlash across media outlets and social networks, with critics highlighting China’s four decades of rapid development plans that lifted 800 million people out of poverty, culminating in a celebration marking the eradication of absolute poverty in the country.
Drastic Increase in Prices Has Severely Reduced Food Consumption in #Iran
The increase in milk and meat prices has led to a decrease in per capita consumption of these essential needs.https://t.co/1Vsgnn2FDf pic.twitter.com/2AigloNo06— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) July 2, 2019
These comments come amid escalating economic hardship in Iran, where soaring prices and inflation have plunged at least 30 million Iranians below the poverty line in the last decade.
Comparisons drawn with North Korea, a country known for its economic struggles, paint an even more dire picture for Iranians. According to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data, Iran’s annual per capita red meat consumption of 4 kilograms is alarmingly low compared to North Korea’s 8.10 kilograms and Tanzania’s 10 kilograms.
The Sharif University of Technology’s research center reports that 58% of households, around 49 million people, did not consume any red meat in 2021-2022.
As economic crises deepen under Iran’s current regime, the consequences extend beyond empty tables to the availability of drinkable water, the rising cost of bread, pervasive unemployment, and the plight of destitution affecting millions. Amid these hardships, eating meat has become a luxury.
Aminabadi claims that the government’s tampering with numbers and changing the base year for calculating inflation from 1395 to 1399 merely attempts to artificially reduce the percentage and hide the impending economic collapse.
Gholamali Jafarzadeh Aminabadi, the former member of the parliamentary Budget and Planning Commission, accuses the government of manipulating statistics, including inflation figures, to conceal the true economic situation.
As Iranians grapple with these challenges, the regime’s pursuit of its agenda has led to a decline in the nation’s prosperity, pushing the people away from normalcy and towards a potentially explosive outrage. Indications from the uprisings since 2017 suggest a nation with nothing more to lose, dangerously close to the edge of a precipice.
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