Monday Mix

Are you hungry? Change your diet

Whenever a preacher seeks to remind his congregation of an immutable law, he says “it is written”. And if it is written, it cannot be questioned.

Judging by the way Kenyans have stuck to a diet derived from maize, one would be forgiven for thinking it is written that this is the only food they can eat.

So, after subsisting on ugali and kales for three days in a row, the average family will “change” by eating githeri on the fourth day. Many will only eat rice with cabbage occasionally. And on a really good day, they will eat chapati with beef.

And no sooner is this treat over than they will revert to ugali and more ugali. No wonder it has become impossible to satisfy the demand for maize flour.

Surely, there must be other foods more nutritious than maize. Take cassava for instance.

In some parts of western Kenya, a mixture of cassava and millet flour is not only known for its high level of nutrients but for energising men especially when eaten with groundnut sauce.

Yet, in spite of its ability to increase love on the domestic front, there has been no serious attempt to market this dish to more Kenyans.

Green bananas are equally nutritious if not more readily available. Yet even in regions where bananas grow in abundance, they are not considered a staple. Rather, they are sold so that the farmer and his family can afford… maize flour.

Scientists now say that because of the national obsession with ugali and maize-based foods, many people are walking around with full stomachs but, undernourished nonetheless.

Although there are numerous foods that are rich in carbohydrates — such as arrow roots, sweet potatoes, millet and sorghum — they have not been given the cult status that maize enjoys.

Now, Mr Abbas Gullet, the big man at the Kenya Red Cross Society, is telling Kenyans to consider other sources of food besides maize to reduce hunger and dependence on maize flour. Sadly, his plea is unlikely to be heeded.

Farmers in arid regions will plant maize, which requires substantial rainfall, even when they know that they stand a better chance of harvesting if they plant millet.

But why would they make such an obvious mistake year after year? The answer is simple. It is not fashionable to grow millet.

Over the years, consumers have attached stigma to this and other readily available foods in favour of non-indigenous varieties like maize and cabbage.

According to the May, 2008, issue of D+C magazine, Kenya has more than 2,000 traditional vegetables, including amaranth (terere) which are more nutritious than cabbage.

Research has shown that families that eat terere more often rarely report illnesses, yet demand for cabbage remains higher.

The problem, according to Emile Frison, an official with Biodiversity International, is that traditional vegetables are considered “backward” and tend to be sold in poor neighbourhoods under unhygienic conditions.

Interestingly, he said, when one supermarket in Kenya started extolling the nutritional value of these vegetables and they were nicely-packaged, the number of consumers increased by over 1,000 per cent.

As one way to fight hunger and improve nutrition, Kenya needs to add value to these stigmatised foods. It can borrow a leaf from Germany where kales are processed into little green cubes that are then sold in 2kg packets. This ensures that one can get this vegetable all year round.

If this could be done locally with all our vegetables, it would ensure a constant supply of greens in fair or foul weather.

Changing the way we eat will not only help us to fight hunger, but also make the country self-sufficient in food production. After we take care of our stomachs, we can then turn our energies to industrial growth, if not politics.

*****

Pray that we should not need an election soon

Dear Kenyans,

From now on, you are under instructions to stop asking the President, the Prime Minister and their MPs to be accountable to you. Those people are no longer your elected leaders. They elected themselves to those high offices.

They did that in two steps. First, they signed the National Accord in February last year. What they did not tell you then is that this nullified the results of the 2007 General Election.

That is why they told Mr Justice Johann Kriegler that they were not interested in knowing who won that election. It did not matter. After all, they had done a little election of their own on the steps of Harambee House and we applauded them for it.

And last month, they disbanded the electoral commission and threw out the voters’ register. I can bet you two or even three packets of maize flour that you will not get even one registered voter.

When MPs changed the Constitution to send the ECK home, they also deleted, nay, expunged, the entire voter register.

But do not worry, Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang’ has promised that the campaign to register new voters will start in March.

Similarly, until a new electoral body is formed, no election can be held in Kenya. Even the Court of Appeal said as much on Wednesday last week when it suspended the hearing of two election petitions because... you guessed right… there is no ECK.

Of course, there is no Kenyan who is interested in another election just now. There is only one hitch, though. If the need for a presidential succession were to arise, well, you are likely to find yourself in a spot of bother.

The Constitution says that in such an event, the vice-president would take over and elections should be held in 90 days. But do you believe that such a thing will happen?

If your answer is “no”, then pray that the need for a succession does not arise.

*****

As Obama gets busy, ministers will be partying

The year was 1861 and the 15th US president, James Buchanan, was leaving the White House.

A few days before, he met his successor, Abraham Lincoln, and said: “If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home, you are the happiest man in this country”.

On Tuesday, as George W. Bush hands over to Barack Obama, he could consider repeating these famous words. For Obama, his cup is already running over with the global economic crisis, millions of US jobs at risk and with two unpopular wars that his predecessor started.

Even as Mr Obama searches for a puppy for his daughters, Mr Bush is mourning the death of his black cat, which died last week, an ironic symbol of the end of his White House years.

Although Mr Obama has made history as the first black tenant of the White House, he might score another first by getting down to work on his first day in office.

Interestingly, several Cabinet ministers from Kenya — which considers itself a working nation — will be in America for informal celebrations as the new president gets busy.

*****
Should we be afraid for Stars?

Congratulations to Harambee Stars for bagging the silver trophy in the just-concluded East and Central Africa Challenge Cup.

In a country with a penchant for bad news, the sterling performance was a welcome breath of fresh air.

That said, once upon a time, there was a third division team called Nyanam.

Like the Stars, this team had what one Cecafa commentator last week called “these big Kenyans”. And like Harambee Stars, the players were well known for their long balls which often ended up… nowhere.

I am told that those who watched the final were frustrated by our boys’ inability to play good football. And if they continue to play “style hiyo hiyo”, then fans have every reason to be very afraid if Harambee Stars qualify for the 2010 World Cup.

But that is not the only challenge facing the team. It would appear that those who manage football in this country have never decided on what should be the national colours.

At various times, the team has used green, white and red uniforms. They even had a mix-and-match.

Isn’t a team supposed to have only two sets of colours: One for away matches and one for the home ground? Or has Fifa changed that rule?