Lebanese struggle to afford meat this Eid Al Adha

Eid Al Adha has come to Beirut but Lebanon's economic crisis has made celebrations difficult.

Given the soaring cost of food and the plummeting value of the Lebanese pound, few people are in the mood or the financial position to mark the occasion as in years past.

Maher Al Masri has been a butcher his whole life and his family shop is a Beirut institution.

Eid Al Adha is his busiest time of year. Usually, he would expect to be slaughtering and butchering anything between 40 and 50 sheep over the religious holiday.

Because of Lebanon’s economic collapse, business is down to a fraction of its usual level. Mr Al Masri says he’ll be lucky to butcher 10 sheep this Eid.

“There’s no comparison. Business has gone down 80 per cent. We are down to 20 per cent. It’s a huge, huge difference,” he says, while draining the bright-red blood from a twitching sheep.

The slaughter of livestock over Eid Al Adha in normal times is a spectacle that brings communities together. It is a commemoration of God asking the Prophet Ibrahim, or Abraham, to sacrifice his son. The name of the celebration itself – Eid Al Adha – means Feast of Sacrifice.

In streets across the Muslim world, Eid Al Adha usually brings visceral scenes – streets run red with the blood of sacrificed sheep and families come together for meals.

That is not the case this year. For the few who can still afford it, the portions of meat are smaller. Many in Lebanon, where the currency has lost more than 90 per cent of its value over the past year, are having to forsake it altogether.

One Eid tradition is giving meat away to the poor.

“They used to cut the sheep into 10 parts and hand it out. Now they cut it into 200 parts,” one woman told The National as she waited for a handout of meat for her children.

“It’s every man for himself,” she said.

The effects are felt all the way down the supply chain. Abu Mohammed used to own one of Beirut’s most famous takeaway joints – Shawarma El Khal.

He says he was making thousands of dollars a month before the crisis. However, the rising cost of the meat used on his shawarma stands put an end to that.

Several months ago, he closed the doors on his restaurant – his life’s work – and took a job with a rival.

“One skewer used to cost me 300,000 Lebanese pounds. Today it’s 2 million pounds,” he tells The National.

Before the crisis, 300,000 Lebanese pounds were worth about $198. Now that amount is worth just $13.

Even at the rival restaurant, meat is so expensive they have had to take it off the menu, serving chicken only instead.

A World Bank assessment in March reported that the price of food in Lebanon had become the highest across the Middle East and North Africa, with costs surging in every single food category.

The rising costs, coupled with a financial crisis that the UN says has pushed more than 55 per cent of the country into poverty, means more people than ever are going hungry in Lebanon.