The Director of Industrial Support at the Food and Drugs Authority, Ebenezer Kofi Essel, has warned the general public against consuming hot meals from plastic rubbers.
He pointed out that the practice may pose a health risk to all engaged in it and should not be encouraged.
Citing the example of ‘Koko’ (porridge) in plastics, he urged Ghanaians to seek alternative wares such as cups or calabash among others to carry their foods since plastics are not designed for that purpose
He explained that heat from some foods can cause harmful chemicals in the plastic rubbers to be ingested while eating from them.
“Plastics are not designed for Koko. What prevents me from taking a cup or any ware that can hold the Koko. Those plastics were not designed for hot foods and so once you put it in there if there is going to be any leaching then you are going to suffer the consequences”, Mr. Essel said on Angel FM’s Anopa Bofo Morning Show.
He was responding to a question about concerns from some consumers over the continued use of harmful, non-biodegradable plastic items to serve or pack hot food and beverage (F&B) items
He however added that “I have not sited any work in Ghana or anywhere that has shown that if I put Koko in plastic this will happen to me. But what I can say is that so long as that material is not designed for Koko if there is any risk you would be exposed to that risk so don’t do it. I will be comfortable with you telling me that it was not designed for it.”
Contrary to the perception that food packaged in polystyrene, popularly called ‘take away’, Mr. Kofi Essel said that the temperature of the food is not high enough to cause the leaching of chemicals into the food.
“Leaching would take place under over hundreds of degrees Celsius. But the dangerous practices that we see is keeping such foods in microwaves [with the take away]”
Touching on the relevance of “World Safety Day”, he advocated that Ghanaians pay attention to eating safe foods, and be mindful of where they eat from.
He defined ‘safe food’ as food that contains all the essential nutrients and is devoid of microbes or disease-causing organisms.
The state and nature of the food should also be good such that its smell and look should not offend your senses but rather, appeal to you, he suggested.
Currently, the country is faced with price hikes of chemical fertilizer leading to a high cost of production oscillating farmers from production. To combat the challenge, reduce the harmful effect associated with chemical fertilizer usage, and ensure the production of quality products by the farmers, the best option is to patronize organic fertilizers.
Fertiliser patronage for this year’s planting season is hitting a snag – an all-time low – as farmers are currently having difficulties procuring the commodity for crop production due to the price hikes.
The John A. Kufour Foundation (JAKF) launched the maiden edition of the Youth in Agribusiness festival to establish the Youth in Agribusiness Information hub in Ghana.
Smallholder farmers constitute the largest workforce in the agriculture sector in Africa. In Ghana, the agriculture sector is overwhelmingly dominated by smallholders producing almost all the food crops being maize, cassava, rice, and cash crop like cocoa.
A letter was issued by the AG. Executive Secretary, James E.K. Dadson of the Land Commission has indicated that the Nungua Farmland which is the hub for research of the Animal Science Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has been taken for redevelopment.
cup of coffie with cinnamon and star anise on wooden background
Even people who take sugar seem at lower risk, say experts, but results may be due to coffee drinkers being more affluent
People who drink coffee – whether with or without sugar – appear to have a lower risk of early death, although experts caution the finding may not be down to the brew itself.
About 98m cups of coffee are drunk every day in the UK, according to the British Coffee Association, with the National Coffee Association revealing that in the US the figure is about 517m cups.
Previous studies have suggested the beverage may be beneficial to health, with coffee drinking associated with a lower risk of conditions ranging from chronic liver disease to certain cancers and even dementia.
Now researchers in China have found people who consumed a moderate amount of coffee every day, whether sweetened with sugar or not, had a lower risk of death over a seven-year period than those who did not.
Similar results were found for instant, ground, and decaffeinated coffee. The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, is based on data from more than 171,000 participants of the UK BioBank – which has collected genetic, lifestyle, and health information from more than 500,000 people since it began in 2006, including details of participants’ coffee-drinking habits.
The team used data from death certificates to track the participants for a median period of seven years from 2009, during which 3,177 people died.
After taking into account factors including age, sex, ethnicity, educational level, smoking status, amount of physical activity, body mass index, and diet, the team found that, compared with those who did not drink the brew, people who consumed unsweetened coffee had the lowest risk of death.
The greatest reduction, a 29% lower risk of death, was seen for those drinking between 2.5 and 4.5 cups a day.
Reductions in the risk of death were also seen for coffee sweetened with sugar, at least for those drinking between 1.5 and 3.5 cups a day. The trend was less clear for people who used artificial sweeteners.
However, the study questioned participants about coffee drinking and other habits only once and relied on self-reporting. Most of those who used sugar added only a spoonful to their drink – meaning it is unclear if the results would hold for speciality coffees with a high sugar content.
Naveed Sattar, a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow who was not involved in the work, cautioned that the findings – while intriguing – were not clear-cut.
“The observational nature of this new study means these conclusions are far from definitive,” he said.
“This is because coffee drinkers are in general more affluent and have healthier lives than non-drinkers and I remain unconvinced whether these factors can be overcome in observational studies.” Prof Sattar added that genetic evidence did not link coffee to any important health benefits.
“I would suggest people stick to coffee or tea, preferably without sugar, which most people can adapt to, and try to do all the other things we know keep you healthy – move more, eat and sleep better.”
In an accompanying editorial, Dr Christina Wee, deputy editor of the journal, agreed the findings were not conclusive. But, she added, it did appear that drinking coffee, whether unsweetened or with a modest amount of sugar, was probably not harmful to most people.
“So drink up – but it would be prudent to avoid too many caramel macchiatos while more evidence brews,” she wrote.
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The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has urged African countries to strengthen and improve their agricultural potential to become the global food buffer.
