Oh the Humanity...

Hoard your ketchup! Stock up on mustard! Preserve all your, well, preservatives! There appears to be a condiment crisis in Taiwan. If you should venture into any McDonald's, Burger King, or KFC in the city, I hope you like your french fries plain. There are no baskets containing the packets of red, yellow, and bbq colored sauces. Oh no! These packets are rationed out as one to two per customer depending on the piety of the store manager. Try eating a super-sized helping of golden McDonald's french fries with just one tiny squirt of tomato sauce. It debilitates the taste buds.

This epidemic was only made worse when a friend of mine and I went to a nice restaurant and ordered a large helping of fries to be shared. When it arrived with no ketchup, we requested some from our waitress. Expecting a bottle, squeezey-thing, or at least a small paper cup of ketchup, we we dismayed when she returned with one, tiny packet- containing enough ketchup that covered maybe five to ten lucky fries- to be shared between us. Apparently ketchup is in high demand these days in Taipei and the problem is only getting worse.

Tomato sauce related products are experiencing a price boost due to this limited supply. According to the Taipei Times, a reputable English newspaper in Taipei, Pizza is being target specifically for a cost hike. It writes, " Cheese sandwiches and pizzas may no longer be a cheap snack...It is bad news for pizza chains and Britain's fromage lovers who have enjoyed four years of the price remaining stable. But no more." Clearly, businesses are coping as best they can with this tragedy. And no other demographic has been hit harder than the Asian-Italian community. "For the owners of Italian restaurants, the massive price increases could not have come at a worse time. Wheat prices are also soaring, sending the cost of pasta spiralling."

Mmmm... spiral pasta...

How can you help? Donations. Please go to your McDonald's, your Wendy's, your In and Out Burgers, your Jack-in-the-Boxes. Go to where the ketchup runs freely, where there are no tyrants regulating your daily intake of preserved ketchup consumption. Write to your senators and make sure they are aware of this national problem. Together, we can make a world where people are not measured by the number of ketchup packets they take, but by the number of french fries they can dip.