By Honourable Saka
For those of you who work in the health
sector, maybe you might have realized the unusual manner in which many
of us Africans have been dying younger in recent times. Others who have
been following many funeral announcements in the various media would
appreciate what I am talking about. Apart from the fact that modern
Africans now die younger, perhaps the other scary development we face is
that there are currently too many kinds of ‘incurable’ diseases which
have come to stay with us than it used to be more than 50 years ago,
despite the so-called ‘advancement’ in medical research.
Why do so many children below age 10,
wear glasses due to poor eye sight, when as a matter of fact our
grandmothers and our forefathers could see perfectly well without
wearing glasses? So I keep asking myself: what exactly is wrong with us
in this modern world? Why do we keep living with such illusions that our
‘healthcare’ systems are getting better in our modern times, when the
opposite is rather the case?
Meanwhile a couple of years back,
Africans were living in good health. People were living much longer than
today. In many cases, dying below the age of 80years in Africa was
considered to be “abomination” (unnatural) and many would usually
express a shock upon receiving such news.
My sympathy to the bereaved family
But today, about 70% of all deaths and
funeral announcements here in Africa have been dominated by people in
their 30s and 40s or at best, very few in their 50s. Shockingly, nobody
seems to be concerned about this dangerous development. From the
streets of Lagos, through Accra, Lusaka to Cairo, it is business as
usual as if to say, seeing many of us die below age 50 is a normal
thing. After all, we are always too busy, chasing more money that none
of us has time to take a second look at this dangerous trend we’re
currently living with.
Well, for me, this has been one of the
major issues that has been bothering my mind almost every day and night
for the past few years as l continue to wonder why many African in our
modern times are seriously dying younger than our forefathers did.
Fortunately, I have been able to
discover some of the reasons which I am willing to share with the
African people. I believe that if these issues are taken serious, we
could do something to change this unfortunate trend. So I made the
effort to ask a grandmother some questions, hoping to get answers for
our current generation.
Why did our ‘illiterate’ forefathers live longer?
The image is intended for educational purpose only. My sincere sympathy to the bereaved family
In order for us to understand why we the
modern ones are dying younger, it is imperative that we take a look back
and ask ourselves the reasons why our forefathers lived longer. If this
understanding could be established, then we could find a way out for
modern African.
A Short Conversation With Grandmother
Honourable Saka chats with Grandma, she is in her 80s yet she’s strong and very healthy
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of
chatting with an old woman in her late 80s. I took the opportunity to
ask some ‘funny’ questions in my determination to identify the root
causes of the problem. As patient as she was, grandma was able to help
me out, bearing in mind she was dealing with a young man who wanted
answers to save his generation especially the youth from dying younger.
So my first question to grandma was: ‘Why did you as a person and many in your generation live longer’?
She replied: “my son, it was because
of the eating habit we had during those times when we were young. Most
importantly, the quality of food we ate was far better than what you
people eat these days”.
So I asked again: why then are we dying younger now?
She replied: “My son, the problem is
still because of your eating habit today. You people of today don’t eat
well at all! Besides, the quality of food you eat today is very, very
dangerous! What you call food today are in fact chemicals! That is why
everyone is dying much younger”.
At this point, l missed a heartbeat. So l
leaned back and asked again: “Grandma, what did you mean when you said
my generation eats chemicals? I thought we’ve been eating ‘balance diet’
all these while”.
“Well, you see my son, let me tell you a
short story, she said. Many years ago, there were no fertilizers. In
fact every food we ate was naturally well cultivated and well-prepared.
Food stuffs on the farms were allowed to grow naturally. For instance,
our yam was as sweet as the sugarcane. But today, the yam you eat has no
taste, she continued. We did not spray our foodstuffs with those
dangerous chemicals which you modern people have been pouring on your
crops every now and then.
At that time, any fruit or food you find on the market or at home had a real natural taste”, she paused.
Moments later, she continued: “Our
pineapples, pawpaw, and all the fruits we had at that time were
naturally ripped on the farm before they were harvest for consumption.
In fact, one could sense the smell of pineapple from a distance of 100
meters and beyond”.
Then in our neighbourhood, she narrated:
when a woman was preparing chicken soup for instance, everybody in the
neighbourhood could smell the aroma of that soup from a far distance. We
could all sense that yes, indeed that woman in that house was preparing
chicken soup. Most importantly, the taste of the soup was as wonderful
as the aroma, she added. We ate local dishes such as ‘ebunabunu’,
‘mportomportor’, we ate our yams and cocoyam with palm oil (red oil) and
avocado. I am told palm oil is very good for the eyes. In short, there
were many kinds of food we ate during our time but your generation don’t
like to eat these kinds of food. Your people want ‘ready-made’ food,
she explained.
“Your stew is no longer green like our
time. Even the kenkey your mothers cook today, they wrap it with
polythene bags, so the food doesn’t absorb the nutrients from the leaves
which we used to wrap the kenkey. Meanwhile l know the polythene itself
is dangerous especially when heated together with the food. But your
people still do it every day and they don’t see anything wrong with it.
To be honest, I feel very worried about this”, she decried.
Nowadays when they boil rice, instead of
them to cover the pot with a silver lid, they choose to use black
polythene to cover the food. They claim the polythene bag absorbs the
steam.
But they don’t realize that the heat in
the bag also releases some dangerous chemicals from the polythene into
the rice”, she added.
“Also nowadays, your pineapples are all
green even though you claim it is ripped. Today’s pawpaw, when they are
ready for harvest, they are still green. Your pineapple has never been
yellow before like we used to have during our time. Yours is always
green. Worst of all, they have no flavour and not taste.
You cannot sense a ripped pineapple from a distance any longer”, she concluded.
“So my son, a lot of things have changed
overnight and this explains the reasons why there are currently too
many diseases around. Your generation need to change the nature of food
you eat. The chemicals in the food is simply too much but you can’t see
it with your eyes”, she explained.
“In fact, the most dangerous aspect of
your food is that, apart from the fact that the food itself is of poor
quality, you people don’t eat early at all. You go to work and come back
at 9pm. So even at 10pm you’re still eating ‘fried rice’ and chicken.
Oh, it’s a pity. It is dangerous my son”! She lamented.
“But before I forget, my son, you know
during our time, we did a lot of exercise as well. Remember we walked
every day to the farm. We climbed the mountains. The good thing was that
this was some form of exercise. Believe me; we did a lot of body
exercise out of this. Our men were riding bicycles to work every day.
But today you modern ones are lazy. You don’t walk any distance. You
don’t climb any mountains like we did every day when we walked to the
farms. All you do today is jump on the cars and before you blink twice
you have hopped down at your destination. You don’t want to use your
bodies any longer. But this is not too good. That is why many of you
often collapse just like that. It is something your people must examine
carefully”, she concluded.
What Can We Learn From Grandma’s Line of Thought?
The funeral ceremonies are becoming too many for young Africans
After listening to the old woman in her
80s, explaining the logic and the mystery behind why the modern African
die younger, I began to wonder the irony of life. But seriously, if our
‘colonial’ and ‘illiterate’ grandmothers knew all these things, why is
it that our modern, over-educated young ones don’t seem to have any clue
about why our people are dying younger in such large numbers?
It is high time the African people begun
to take a second look at our eating habits and most importantly the
quality of food we eat today. As far as our health is concerned, I think
Africans must rather invest in quality of food rather than relying on
chemicals to merely produce plenty of ‘deadly’ food which come with
long-term health implications. It is time we go back to the colonial era
where Africans ate natural and high quality food.
This is the only way we can live longer
as our forefathers did. These so-called modern foods and our current bad
eating hobbits are only helping us to dig our own graves. A word to the
wise they say is enough.
Long live ‘modern’ Africans.
Honourable Saka
The writer is the project coordinator
for the Project Pan-Africa (PPA), available at:
www.projectpanafrica.org. PPA is grateful to Itech Plus and all media
partners who supports his vision for the African youth. E-mail:
honourablesaka@yahoo.co.uk
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