When it comes to food safety, the first thing that comes to my mind is food hygiene. Most times we are very careless of where we consume our food and how we consume it. Here in Nigeria, a lot of people are fond of eating on the road no matter how dirty the environment may be. We have so many unhealthy habits when it comes to our food safety and that’s as a result to our belief that disease doesn’t kill an African person.
Food safety is something that starts right from the time it is planted to when it is processed. So many times, we just eat food even without knowing how it was processed and packaged. These days, we have seen how so many foods have been adulterated and even cloned. Sometimes we think we are eating the healthy foods as we know them but little do we know that it is something totally different that we are consuming. Lately, so many foods we consume are no longer safe and unless we are the ones that are planting and harvesting these foods, we can’t fully trust them.
And this is one reason why it is not just advisable to consume too much packaged foods as they are the ones that can easily be adulterated. And also, this is the reason people are encouraged to eat home made foods prepared by themselves or someone trusted. Just preparing the food at home doesn’t completely guarantees its safety but it reduces the chances of unnecessary contamination which we might not be aware of.
By preparing our meals, we are then encouraged to practice some food hygiene like using clean water to cook and also to clean the things we use for cooking properly. Cultivating the habit of properly covering our foods too is very important. Just opening our foods down or not properly covering them exposes them to a lot of contaminations that we won’t even notice. For us to truly keep our food safe, we have to practice food hygiene and also buy food from reliable suppliers and not just any random seller we see.
This practice might be hard but it is something we can do for ourselves and that of our families. Food is something that as humans we need and it is paramount that we take it seriously by keeping it safe from all forms of contamination because the moment food is contaminated, it ruins the whole essence of eating. Instead of the body to focus on adding more nutrients by absorbing nutrients from the food, the body will be fighting those contaminants thereby causing it to lose more nutrients and energy instead.
Food safety is everything we can do to keep our food safe and healthy. It shouldn’t be negotiable as much as it’s possible. Being unable to properly keep our food can cause a lot of problems to us because once contaminated, it can cause so many diseases to our body that most times take some time to manifest. If there is anything that we can do to eat safer food, we shouldn’t negotiate it for anything. It matters, don’t think otherwise.
Thank you for reading through. 💜