Director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has urged Nigerians to embrace safe, and wholesome food to boost the body’s immunity and improve natural defenses in fighting diseases.
She also said that Nigerians do not need medicines if they eat right, stressing that eating right means making healthy food choices from safe, wholesome, and nutritious foods.
Adeyeye made the admonition in Abuja yesterday at the NAFDAC celebration of the 4th World Food Safety Day 2022 with the theme “Safer Food, Better Health”, where she opined that where food is unsafe, our nutritional goals cannot be achieved.
She said safe food is an essential component of sustainable development and contributes towards improvement of public health, poverty reduction, and increased food security.
The DG noted that the theme for this year is very apt, as the world gradually returns to normal with the COVID-19 pandemic having lost its firm grip on the world, while pointing out that the theme also aligns with the World Health Assembly 75 theme, which is Health for Peace and Peace for Health.
She added that safer food indeed takes the front and centre position for better health and relative personal and world peace. ‘’You all know my popular saying about not needing medicine if one eats right. Eating right means making healthy food choices from safe, wholesome, and nutritious foods’’, she said.
The DG stressed that the occasion of World Food Safety Day is an added opportunity to create and generate awareness around food safety and situate it as a very significant issue of public health concern, especially in the light of safe, wholesome food being important for boosting immunity and improving the body’s natural defenses in fighting diseases.
Adeyeye regretted that these foods are frequently exposed to less than hygienic and sanitary conditions, resulting in contamination and leading to incidences and outbreaks of foodborne diseases, situations that are steadily becoming significant food safety concerns.
The NAFDAC boss disclosed that unsafe foods are the cause of many diseases and contribute to other poor health conditions, such as impaired growth and development. ‘’We know that food safety is a shared responsibility, and everyone has a role to play in ensuring we have safer food for better health: from growers to processors, to transporters, sellers, buyers, and those who prepare or serve food. Policy makers, educational institutions and workplaces, as well as consumers are not left out; food safety is the responsibility of all. We must all work together to help achieve safer food for better health,” she said.
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