10
UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 6th JULY, 2014
“Roti is the root of all evil,” he’d said, stressing
that white flour and white rice were the biggest
contributors to type 2 diabetes. Identifying obesity
and its root was a ground-breaking revelation then,
but despitemany public education initiatives, little
has been done to dent the local desire for roti,
bread, bakes, dumplings and all the other white
flour treats.
There have been some Government initiatives,
but they do not appear to have been linked to
the health aspect; for example, the National
Food Production Action Plan 2012-2015, put
out by the Ministry of Food Production (under a
previous Minister) has a list of “staples” selected
under the food security programme. These were
rice, dasheen, cassava, eddoes, sweet potatoes
and breadfruit—a list that
w o u l d
have pleased Dr Poon-
King—
but they were selected on
the basis of a goal to reduce
imported staples.
The Government website
in 2013 noted that with the
“food import bill hovering at
over US$2b, the consumption of
root and tuber crops is assuming
greater importance in the diet of
all Caribbean peoples, as imported
carbohydrates, such as flour and
rice continue to escalate.” And
even that same year when the The
Trinidad and Tobago Agribusiness
Association (TTABA) gave out 38
contracts to farmers to give them
120,000 lbs of cassava to produce
the TTABA Farmers Bread brand,
all the talk was about boosting food
security. Nothing was said about
how consumers were going to be
wooed to a new taste, or educated
about why it would be a healthier
choice. Has the cassava bread taken
off?
In early June, the
Guardian
reported that, “Between 2005 to
2009, T&T’s imports of staples
averaged 236,700 tonnes at a value
of almost $700 million annually.”
These were the staples whose
import cost was supposed to drop
in ranges from 25% to 100% if all
went according to the 2012-2015
Action Plan. Saying that this figure
was 29% of the total food import
bill, the Food Production Minister
Devant Maharaj said it led to an
unacceptable level of vulnerability.
“Our food consumption patterns are
The problem is that nobody sees the big
picture. It is one thing for the man in the street
to be preoccupied with his little corner of hell.
But our planners ought to be the ones grasping
the full basketful of factors and making strategic
plans that connect the dots.
No campaign aligns the two elements in
marketing these staples. No one seems to be
willing or able to grapple with the formidable
task of shifting the mindset of a people already
industrially steeped in oil and sugar. If there could
be one massive project of public education, the
piecemeal efforts would not fall so readily
by the wayside.
In November 2012, the Health
Minister was urging citizens to avoid
food additives such as monosodium
glutamate (MSG), commonly labeled
as Ve-tsin or glutamic acid, and very
present in fast foods,
because of its link to
chi ldhood obesity.
In November 2012, a
Newsday
report quoted
him as saying, “It goes
into the system, goes into
the brain and stops what
they call the satiety centre. The
satiety centre tells you when to
stop eating, okay. It (MSG) is an
addictive type of compound that
makes you eat more… “That is why
we have a whole set of young children
obese, want more of the junk food, with
empty calories.”
While obesity is the most common
factor in all of the lifestyle diseases, it
doesn’t mean that a person of normal
weight is not susceptible—a range of
contributing factors exist, and regular
exercise and sensible eating choices
are the best preventative medicine.
The Health Minister has been
vocal in the cause of better lifestyle
choices in terms of exercise and diet.
Yet, there is little evidence to show that
the Ministry is exerting itself to follow
through on these pronouncements.
Another consistent voice has been
that of Dr David Bratt, the pediatrician
who uses his column to dispense
advice. His column of June 3, 2014,
“Fast food the new cigarettes” makes a
compelling case for State interventions
in areas where industries are making
a killing despite the ill-effects of
their products. “Fast food is the new
cigarettes, and sugar the new tobacco,”
ENERGY
HEALTH
based on dishes that encourage high consumption
of wheat and value added products such as bread,
roti and pastry,” he said. Maharaj said hisMinistry,
through a Staples Commodity Team led by
Nigel Grimes, is developing a Strategic Industry
Development Plan for the cassava industry. The
report did not quote anyone here, but explained
the plan’s intent: “This plan will focus strategic
promotion of cassava to increase markets and
demand for that staple given its historically low
consumption and the insignificant trade in cassava
related products in T&T.”
The Ministry acknowledges the “historically
l ow c o n s ump t i o n” a n d
“insignificant trade” in cassava
related products, but nowhere
have I seen any effort to raise
public awareness about the
value of these staples in
health-related terms. Will
people really get turned
on to these staples in
order to reduce
t he f o od
i mp o r t
bill?
“Fast food is the
newcigarettes,
and sugar the
newtobacco”
Dr David Bratt
