News:
July 2, 2023
Mr Kwabena Agyei Agyapong , a flagbearer aspirant of the New patriotic Party (NPP) has advised Ghanaian caterers to lay emphasis on the nutritional value of their meals.
According to him unlike in other jurisdictions where emphasis is given to the protein needs of the people where restaurants sometimes only serve dishes with only protein content, Ghanaian restaurants seems to focus more on the carbohydrate parts of our meal including banku, rice, fufu and other dishes made of carbohydrates.
Mr Agyapong who joined Agrihouse Foundation to mark this year’s Ghana Chicken Festival and the Ghana Poultry Day at the State House in Accra on July 1, 2023, said “we need to change our mind set about nutrition and it stems from how we even designate the names of our dishes because if you get to any restaurant you can see banku is ready, fufu is ready, ampesi; so we concentrate a lot more in Ghana on the carbohydrate; and that is not good for our health, and that is why a lot of people are walking around with diabetes but we don’t know because the starch content in these foods are very high and we need to de-emphasize that”.
He asserts that the opposite is what pertains at the continental restaurants. “You’ll see lamb, chicken, pork, fish and the meats, so they emphasis on the protein and whatever they add are usually the slices of carbohydrates foods”.
According to him, it is a lot of work for the dieticians, the nutritionist; and it should start from the school to help improve our health.
He said he expects the government to take this up and expect the participation of the Ministry of Agriculture in the Ghana Chicken Festival and the Ghana Poultry Day festival to be a bit heightened because the poultry industry has a lot of potential to not only supply the protein needs of the people but to employ a lot of people along the value chain and generate more income for the people.
Mr Agyapong also emphasized the need to scale up poultry production and consumption in in Ghana as the country is lagging behind producing just about 15percent of its poultry needs.
Agrihouse Foundation has instituted the Ghana Chicken Festival and the Ghana Poultry Day to be celebrated every year on July First, an initiative the Foundation hopes to ride on to make a strong case to officially institute July 1, for poultry farmers and Poultry production to breathe new life into the poultry industry and also scale up consumption and patronage of locally product poultry products.
Ghanamps.com