The slow food plan that could quash Christmas appetites

Nutritionists say most people put on an average of three kilos during the festive season mostly because the preferred “treat” during this season is the convenient fried food available in fast food restaurants.

However, one man is out to prevent this weight gain by urging people to eat traditional foods like boiled maize, sweet potatoes and boiled vegetables.

Just started

John Kariuki has just begun the revolution. The 23-year-old wants to slow down your big, festive appetite and ensure you say no to that plate of oily fries and chicken this Christmas. He wants you to choose healthy food.

A week ago, Mr Kariuki attended the Terra Madre Day – a day that celebrates the eating of traditional foods with local food producers – in Mau Forest together with the Ogiek community, and their lunch was siwot (Ogiek traditional vegetables) and forest honey.

But not many will find this kind of indigenous meal appetising. Diana, who frequents fast food restaurants in Nairobi, says she cannot imagine eating a plateful of steamed maize, arrowroot or millet ugali.

“I don’t think I can eat those kinds of foods on Christmas Day. I am not sick ... After all, I have been eating fries and grilled chicken for a very long time and I haven’t died,” she said adamantly.

And Diana is not alone. Mr Kariuki recalls making the trip from Nakuru to Nairobi a few weeks ago when he sat close to passengers eating fries, fried chicken and meatballs. He ate sugarcane.

And the holder of a bachelor’s degree in gastronomy from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy knows he will meet plenty of resistance, but he is determined to help Kenyans prevent obesity and chronic diseases by consuming traditional foods.

Local products

“People have wrongly begun to turn away from local products in favour of exotic Western alternatives,” he said.

Mr Kariuki is among a group of people around the world hoping to get people to embrace slow food this Christmas.

The young Mr Kariuki was recently appointed Slow Food International’s president for Africa. Slow Food International is a non-profit organisation founded in 1989 to counteract the proliferation of fast food and to raise people’s awareness about what they eat, where it comes from and how their culinary choices affect the world.

Mr Kariuki says his main task is to reduce people’s consumption of fast foods, to make sure the role played by small-scale farmers in feeding the people is appreciated and to encourage young people to take up agriculture.

Carlo Petrini, Slow Food International’s founder, said when he was asked to nominate a vice-president to the organisation’s board, he immediately thought of Mr Kariuki.

“I didn’t chose a European or an older person, I chose a 19-year-old student from Kenya instead. He is young and energetic. Make him work when he goes back to Africa,” Mr Petrini told the delegates. Mr Kariuki was elected in 2006 by 600 delegates representing more than 130 countries to represent the youth and Africa.

Slow Food has more than 150,000 members in 153 countries, 1,300 convivia (local chapters of the organisation) and 2,000 food communities. In Kenya, it has 250 members and 12 convivia.