UNDERSTANDING LOCAL FOOD SAFETY ISSUES
There are a lot of common age-long, unsafe food practices that we engaged in and which we have to stop if we are to ensure consumption of wholesome, safe and nutritious foods.
Some of these unsafe food practices are:
- Use of Paracetamol to tenderize meat
- Cooking cow skin with nail to make it soft
- Using Broomstick for shredding and mashing of cooked mallow leaves otherwise known as ewedu
- Roasting of Groundnuts with sand
- Storing raw foods (e.g. meat, fish, chicken, etc) with other food items which cause cross- contamination
- Tasting of seemingly spoilt food to ascertain its quality
- Using sand as local oven to bake
Experts has advised that it is dangerous to use broomsticks which is an age-long practice to mash the slimy vegetable, mallow- leaves which is a local soup otherwise known as Ewedu in Yoruba speaking areas, Rama ayoyo among the Hausas while the Igbo call it Kerenkere. This is because ewedu soup that is mashed with broomsticks could still retain splinters of the broom and when eaten, the splinters from the broomsticks could get trapped inside the esophagus or the intestine. And according to experts, this has been attributed to some gastroenterology- related diseases.
In Yoruba speaking areas, most mothers used this ewedu soup to wean their babies and thus extra care must be applied while preparing this soup.
While NAFDAC and other healthcare professionals in Nigeria has advised people to stop this unwholesome practices because the prolonged use of paracetamol as a pain- killer increases the risk of kidney and liver diseases not to take of using it for coking meat, beans, etc which increases the risk of suffering from the above diseases.
Do you know of any unwholesome and unsafe food practices that people engaged in?
You can share your experiences on some of these age-long practices and its food safety concerns. Also, let’s hear your inputs and suggestions on how best to put a stop to it so as to ensure consumption of safe and nutritious foods for the populace?
Food safety is everyone’s business and a shared responsibility!
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