Safe Food for All

What is food safety? Food Safety is the concept of handling, preparing, storing, and consuming foods in ways that best reduce the risk of individuals becoming sick. Its principles generally aim at preventing foods from becoming contaminated and causing food poisoning. Ensuring food safety is a shared responsibility among governments, producers, processors, distributors, retailers, and consumers. In the food supply chain, every component plays a major role in ensuring food safety. What is a food supply chain? A food supply chain is a sequence through which food moves systematically from producers (farmers) to processors to distributors to retailers and then to consumers who are the end users.  Who is a Consumer? : A consumer is a person who purchases goods and services for personal use. So you and I are consumers of all kinds of food products in the market. You may wonder if consumers have a role to play in ensuring food safety. The answer is yes, we do. Consumers have a...

PHOTO: UNICEF The World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from 1 - 7th August to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies around the world. Breastfeeding provides both long-term and short-term health, economic and environmental benefits to children, women and the society at large. Studies have shown that children who are breastfed for a longer period have better cognitive development than those who are breastfed for shorter periods; this translates to improved academic performance and productivity. Breastfeeding decreases the risk of mothers developing breast cancer, ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and averts maternal deaths yearly. These are reasons why public health organizations recommend breastfeeding, starting from one hour after birth to six months until the baby is six (6) months old. Thereafter, nutritious and safe complementary food should be added while continuing to breastfeed for up to 1 year and beyond. Apart from the ...