If you think you're the most unfortunate being in the world, think again. After reading this article, you will consider yourself fortunate enough to have a decent meal every day.

Here in the Philippines, "pagpag" is very popular among less fortunate Filipino living in the slum. Pagpag is the term used for leftover meats from restaurants like Jollibee, Mc Donalds, and the like. Restaurants threw it in the garbage and people from the streets took it out and bring it home. They clean it, boil it and cook it again to be consumed.

While in another part of the world, particularly in Haiti, people it mud, yes you read it right, they eat mud. Mud from the mountains. They used it in making cookies. They believe that it contains essential minerals that are good for their health. Obviously, this is not the ordinary cookie that we bought in bakeries. I bet that you cannot swallow it, or even just take a bite.

Their ingredients for making cookies are salt and mud, sometimes they add sugar if it is available. They mix it all using their bare hands in a bucket. And if they will make cookies in large quantities, mostly they mix it in the floor just like mixing cement.

You'll be surprised by the way they cook it. After mixing the "cookie dough" they will mold it and put it under the sun until it hardens. The sun will serve as the oven that will cook their cookies. And when the cookies are cooked, they will sell it. Many people are buying it, from the oldies, pregnants, children, and sometimes babies.

People in Haiti believe that the mud contains anti-acid and calcium which doctors refute, although technically it contains minerals but not enough nutrients needed for their body.

And there are many diseases you can get from the cookies due to soil-transmitted helminths or worm-like bacteria, animal manure, dirty water, and the very unsanitary way of cooking.

They can't even buy fruits because it is expensive and their income is not enough to buy fruits. Or let's say you have money, but in a place like Haiti that there is not enough supply of food and expensive price, you have no choice but to eat cookies to survive.

So, why don't you stop for a while and think? What if one day, you'll wake up in the same situation that you have no other choice but to eat cookies made with mud just to survive. Will you be able to do it?

So next time, before you complain about the things that you have, think of them. Before you complain, why you're eating sardines or dried fish, think of them. Before you waste your food, think that there are so many people in the world who cannot eat the food that you're having.

Just be grateful that you can have a decent meal every day, be able to eat the food that you want.

And if you're struggling in your life, don't lose hope. Life is like a wheel, you're maybe at the lowest point of your life now, but tomorrow will not be the same.

Dream, Believe, Prosper

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