Malnourishment in The Gambia
Food related illnesses and malnourishment are all too common in the Gambia. It's hard to comprehend that people still prefer packaged / franchaised products to meals prepared with basic home grown ingredients. We are living in an era of ultra-pasteurization and high tech processing.
Many supermarket products are concoctions made from a narrow selection of ingredients which are not nutritional. Consider for instance 'coolwhip' (which is 98% water, corn syrup and vegetable oil). The remaining 2% is made from a list of additives most people will not have heard of.
What nourishment does it have? Hardly any, other than raw calories to burn, or fat to store. This is in stark contrast to reclaim which is rich in fat soluble enzyems, vitamins and high quality fats that we need.
The Gambian flavourful (and healthy) spinach with peanut sauce dish
Many people think the industrial food supply is best as it's the cheapest, most abundant, and features the widest choice at the quickest convenience. However we need to not only prioritize satisfying hunger quickly, but also about foods with nutritional value.
Nothing seems to characterize our food systems more than insufficiency. More and more we import, rather than produce what we eat. The industrial food system is inadequate. The agricultural department's own record indicate a reduction in nutrients in the food supply, and there are many factors at fault:
1. The decline of minerals through agricultural practices, dominance of mining over farming, plus an excessive use of synthetic chemical fertilizers.
2. Food travels enormous distances - an average of 1000km from field to table, necessitating harvest before peak ripeness and peak nutritional content.
3. Inadequate, substandard storage.
Thanks to the convenience of the industrial food system, today we are far from making neccessary efforts to gain security through hunting, gathering or growing our food, and from regularly preparing it.
With this convenience, comes a lack of awareness about the nature of our food. We don't know where it comes from nor do we know how it was grown. Many of us are yet to understand what constitutes quality in food, so between producing our own or buying something close by, it seems a homestead alternative.
When we produce our own food we know it's safe - but when we buy it from local sources we should have the opportunity to ask questions. Our daily food intake should not need to depend on anonymous systems built on the exploitation of uneducated factory workers that continue to produce junk.
If chicken noodles and chicken supreme are largely (aside from the meat) the same blend of highly processed ingredients, have I made a meaningful choice in how I nourish my body, as opposed to how I tickle my tastebuds?
This is the history of the vast majority of supermarket and fast food chicken. If you're doubtful about which products are genetically modified or not, sadly you’re on our own! This is because in The Gambia, the department of Food & Agriculture conveniently decided that it is not important for you to know. Food labels are not required to feature this information.
Buying food from farmers locally or producing your own - assures quality, fresh ingredients. Food made from primary ingredients does not require fancy preparations, and you can create simple traditional dishes - rather buying an imitation of them.
Based on reliable research on milk products, it has been indicated that the synthetic bovine growth hormone ''rBGH'' is used to boost milk production in most large commercial diary herds.
Abundant food is cheap - but we ignore the true cost, such as pollution of ground water by excessive use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, and the heavy use of antibiotics in high confinement feeding operations (which risks antibiotics to become ineffective).
You should not have to accept food options dictated by the industrial food market, and avoid the disguised, genetically modified ingredients, flavourings and preservatives, pesticide residues, ultra refined starches and sugars.
There‘s hardly any doubt that the way we eat has great deal to do with the epidemic rate of disease that is being suffered. Especially worrisome is the growing number of children with related diseases, including diabetes, not to mention a skyrocketing rate of obesity, which increases the risk of hypertension, coronary heart disease and several kinds of cancer.
When I attempt to separate processed products, I'm amazed at how limited our choice is. Do you know anyone would knowingly buy contaminated food? Would you?