Our meals in this part of the world, are mostly staple. From garri, to tuwo, to yam to the popular rice. Starchy meals that make up more than 60% of our meals. Even when it comes to protein, we prefer meat (beef) to eggs, beans and fish, which are considered healthier sources of protein.
Before urbanisation invaded our communal and small satisfactory way of living in Nigeria, our parents ate fruits and vegetables. Not like it was a deliberate effort to balance every meal, but it was an innate tendency to eat fruits and vegetables which were easily accessible
One would have thought that, with education and health enlightenment, we would be deliberate about balancing our every meal by always including our greens. But like every good thing, urbanisation came with its bad side.
The fast paced life, the competitive life, the hustle and the bustle of everyday, has greatly affected our eating lifestyle. Most people are not concerned about eating green. The era of gardens and planting a little vegetable here, and a little vegetable there has been wiped off.
Not only do we not have time to own gardens these days, we have also lost the patience to wait for our vegetables and fruits to ripen naturally. We pluck them prematurely, and force them to maturity, with chemicals that are eventually dangerous to the health.
Therefore, when we remember to eat our vegetables, we are not quite certain if we are eating all the complete nutrients that nature allotes to them, as a reward for the patience to completely mature, or we are eating just some of the nutrients that was given by nature, before they were raped of the remaining nutrients because of our impatience.
Still, a meal is not ready, never complete without a little touch of green here, and a little touch of green there. For nature itself is green, and she wants to live inside of us. After all, weren't we made to co-habitate?
Written by Mary Jane.
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