Bamako - Post Report Question and Answers
What kinds of organic, vegetarian and allergy-friendly foods are available, such as organic produce, gluten-free products, meat substitutes for vegetarians, etc?
Anything that is unprocessed/natural you can find here. Because the country is so poor, food is naturally organic. You have to buy produce when it is in season and preserve it. Chicken breast is also seasonal, difficult to find, and not terribly good. Only westerners eat chicken breast. Turkey is not available. Red meat can be OK, but the American community has been organizing an annual meat order to South African for people to stock up on good meats. Anything processed for special diets (gluten free products, meat substitutes, etc.) are not going to be available here. You'll eat healthy here because there is no processed food, unless you ship in your Western diet with DPO (I ate lunch next to someone one day who was eating a tuna salad sandwich and chips. When I commented on how good it looked, she told me the only thing in her lunch that came from Mali was the leaf of lettuce on her sandwich. She had shipped everything else by DPO.) - Jul 2011
Some organic and vegetarian food is available at La Fourmi, but very expensive. - Jul 2011
If it's grown in Mali, it's going to be organic. I would also apply the "free-range" qualifier to any type of local meat. The beef and pork are pretty good. Fish is decent, but limited to capitaine, for the most part. You can get other fish and shellfish imported from either Abidjan or Dakar. I almost never eat the chicken since it's stringy and it tastes horrible. - Oct 2010
