Page 40 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 17

Food Health
Community

Toxic Food, Food Scandals,

leading to increased vulnerability to COVID-19
Dr Peter Mokaya

he month of September of the failed industrial-chemical with AFSA, is determined to
2021 is just about gone food system and related industry, unearth and expose the “dirty
but not without a well shamelessly, continues to not only linen” aka Food Scandals of
Tdeserved pause; to take package and sell over processed the current conventional food
stock of how things have changed, foods to an unsuspecting popula- system and recommend an
some drastically, with the seemingly tion but they are also aggressively alternative regenerative and
endless COVID-19 pandemic. How marketing these toxic foods, all over sustainable agro-ecological food
does the world end this “pandem- Africa. The focus of this month’s and nutrition system. Susan and
ic”? From the lenses of a Public article is to expose the extent of team of GRAIN have system-
Health Epidemiologist and Wellness these “Food Scandals” and make atically put together a series of
Advocate, it is nothing short of recommendations on alternative “Food Scandals” and provided
astonishing how the WHO and the solutions, which among other bene- the requisite evidence to compel
global health community has bla- fits, strengthen the immune system food policy makers to rethink
tantly ignored and neglected the role and thereby make it difficult for how food is grown, processed,
of safe, diverse, local and healthy COVID-19 infection to transform packaged and transported to
African Indigenous vegetables and to more severe disease (and death in unsuspecting consumers all over
related nutritional interventions in some cases) from weakened immune Africa: Find here the dossier:
the fight against COVID-19. systems. https://grain.org/en/arti-
cle/6724-big-food-in-africa-en-
To make matters worse, the “junk • GRAIN, a relatively small inter- dangering-people-s-health
food industry” which is the outcome national NGO, in partnership

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