Food Innovation challenge :Healthy meal in Nigeria



I am Bukola Taiwo, am from Nigeria. As we all know that health is wealth, healthy eating brings health which in turn brings wealth. Food is the essence of life without food we can not live , without a healthy meals we can not be productive. There is a huge difference in eating and eating a healthy meal . A healthy meal is one that contains all the classes of food, ranging from carbonhydrate to vitamins, minerals, protein, fibre , water ,fat and oil.
In a country like Nigeria, where some food stuff are seasonal and there is no proper storage facility, to keep food fresh and intant when out of season, that pose a challenge that food stuff will be expensive when out of season, which is usually the case. E. g Tomato, chilll and onions
The meal above is Eba with vegetable ganish with tomato, chill and plenty onions, with locust beans, it is a common meal in the western and eastern part of Nigeria, that is yoruba and ibo tribes.
The nutritional value of the above meal is one carbonhdrate which gives energy, vegetable gives vitamins, the meat protein the locust beans fat and oil and its believe to be very good for clear visit (eye sight) the palm oil use in prepararing the soap gives fat and oil. It is a complete meal in itself which is taken daily in most family in Nigeria.
There are challenges in the processing of some of the food stuff above like the gari and the locust beans because of lack of technological advanced machinery to produce fast and easy.
The picture below shows a woman hand peeling melon and the other frying Gari in the midst of that smokey and hot kitchen, with all its health hazard.
To me eating healthy meals is better than taking drugs made from component you do not know about. Eating freshly prepared meal is a healthy way of living a healthy life free from disease .
I encourage people in my community to have a fruit and vegetable garden in their compound to be able to eat freshly prepared meal at all times
The international community can assist our women producing local food stuff with equipment to process food faster and easier to ease the regorous and stressful way of producing local foods.

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