It’s one of the pivots in Jair Bolsonaro’s populist struggle to portray himself as a no-nonsense man of the people: a fist-sized can of condensed milk that costs about $ 0.80 each.
Since his shocking election in 2018, Brazil’s president has repeatedly appeared to top his breakfast sandwich with the sugar-laden liquid – most famously during a morning meal with Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton.
But claims, later partially debunked, that the Bolsonaro administration spent 15.6 million reais (£ 2.1 million / $ 2.9 million) on his favorite food last year have sparked public outcry, killing rivals and opponents voiced the president’s excessive eating habits.
“Those responsible must be punished!” leftist Ciro Gomes thundered on Twitter, demanding a Supreme Court investigation into “Bolsonaro’s ridiculous spending.”
Sâmia Bomfim, a socialist congressman, said Brazilians deserved to know how 7,200 cans of condensed milk could have been devoured every day. “Did the presidential family consume all of this?” she wondered after the allegations were published by a news website called Metrópoles.
Congressman Marcelo Freixo, noting the deadly Covid crisis in the Amazon claimed that “with the money Bolsonaro spent on condensed milk, 8,000 cylinders of oxygen could have been bought to keep Brazilians from suffocating”.
Conservative columnist Merval Pereira condemned a ‘scandal’ [that] would be comical if it weren’t tragic ”. In addition to the condensed milk, 2.2 million reais were reportedly spent on chewing gum, 8.9 million on chocolates and 31.5 million on carbonated drinks, Pereira complained in the O Globo newspaper, denouncing how the spending was “civil. indigestion “. “Even if condensed milk has become a ministerial craze, more than two million cans is exaggerated,” said the columnist.
The truth, lost amid the online turmoil and an explosion of memes and recipes, seemed to reveal a little less about Bolsonaro’s taste buds.
The fact-checking website Aos Fatos reported that the values cited by Metrópoles referred to the total spending of the federal government, not just the presidency. Most – £ 1.9 million ($ 2.6 million) – of the condensed milk had been bought by the Department of Defense to feed tens of thousands of sweet-toothed service people.
Thomas Traumann, a specialist in political communication, said it was ironic that Bolsonaro, who came to power after a tsunami of fake news and misinformation, got a taste of his own medicine.
Traumann predicted that the kerfuffle of condensed milk would not bring Bolsonaro down. But the story was a PR blow to a president already under pressure over the Amazon’s health care collapse. “They’ve started the year on the defensive on social media, which is the domain they control most,” he said.
In a hint of the Bolsonaro family’s unease, the president told the “shitty” reporters who told the story to “go and fuck.” “Go put a can of condensed milk up your ass,” Bolsonaro declared.
His son, Eduardo, published a series of tweets defending condensed milk as ‘high-calorie food’ essential to Brazilian cuisine.
Filipe Martins, a presidential assistant, condemned what he called the “stupid and criminal charge” against his boss. He blamed the “rotten media” for the dairy ballyhoo.