Monday 4 October 2021

ATTAINING GOOD NUTRITIONAL STATUS IN SPITE OF THE ECONOMIC CHALLENGES IN NIGERIA

 

It is not news that the cost of living in Nigeria has skyrocketed. The Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, and rising insecurity are among the factors being blamed for that. The fact is, good nutrition may be a huge challenge in some homes at this point. At The Informed Mum, we understand that nutrition plays a vital role in overall health thus we think sharing the following tips would help us attain good nutrition inspite of the cost of food items.

1.       Focus on locally produced foods and buy from local markets. Most Nigerians believe (sometimes rightly) that the quality of foods from the supermarkets is higher than those in the open markets. The poor regulatory conditions in the country make this belief debatable. But one thing we should be able to do at this point is to ditch the foreign foods for local ones. We wouldn’t only be growing our economy; we would also be saving our money. Buy the Nigerian rice, swap Semo for Amala, tuwo or garri. For babies, ditch the packaged baby foods and produce your own cereals-based food like akamu/pap. You can choose to fortify the baby meals with fruits, nuts, and proteins sourced from our locally produced foods. We have some links to explorable baby food options Mango puree, Avocado and egg puree, Sweet potato and spinach puree and many others by clicking Baby meal ideas . “Good quality” doesn’t necessarily mean “imported”. I may actually trust akamu made from the corn I bought in a local market than some of the baby foods bought in supermarkets.

2.       For babies under 6 months of age, exclusive breastfeeding cannot be overemphasized. It is free, cheap and the healthiest option for most babies.

3.       Eat foods in season. Our lack of steady electricity for food storage often means that foods and fruits that are in season are as cheap as dirt, then become as expensive as diamonds when their seasons start to go. One way of feeding fine is to stick to foods that are in season. Season of yams; eat yams. Do the same with beans, fruits and even vegetables. Nigeria is so blessed with arable land that there are foods in season all year round. During the rainy seasons, we get the vegetables like Ugu, spinach and so on, abundant in the Southern parts of Nigeria. When the dry season comes, vegetables from the Northern parts of Nigeria where they practice a lot of irrigation farming start to bloom. There is food for every season, we just need to make our taste buds adapt to our pockets. We would end up both healthy and able to save some money for our other needs

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