In the last 2 weeks, it has been a busy one. The world was centered onto the royal wedding of Kate and William. In the local front, Malaysians have been passionate about food again. The debate that erupted has been, if the nasi lemak should be banned from the school canteen. When translating from Malay to English, nasi lemak means "fatty rice". It was of no wonder that the ministry of health, headed by a nutritionist itself called for a ban to sell nasi lemak in school canteens. The belief was that the nasi lemak caused obesity among the school going children in the country.
There are many arguments on the cause of obesity among school children. In fact, here, in Malaysia, we have mixed nutritional problems to handle. The obese ones and the malnourished ones. City kids have always made up the bigger proportion of those being overweight and obese. While village children made up the most proportion of the malnourished group. There was a study that mentioned that obesity too affects the poor. The reason was, the poor has a social condition of food insecurity. Food insecurity leads to the poor to buy anything cheap just "to get something on the table". High energy food rich in carbohydrates is the easiest to obtain. What ever food there are on the table, the whole family will engorge, so to speak, and finish up the food, thinking that the next availability of food on the table will be days away. Without realizing this habit that have developed within them, it became a fuel that cause them to put on weight, with dire effects on their health.
I was on a casual conversation with friends from Palestine and Nigeria. Basically updating on our research works and sharing some thoughts that interest us. A brief break from the usual. One of the topics was eggs. Eggs seems to be ubiquitous around the world. Some of us are having it regularly on a daily basis, that we never think it would be depleted some day. This commodity is so common that in KB itself one can buy eggs at every 100 meters on the main road. Eggs are cheap. It contains adequate number of nutrient to feed an adult. In a community with a nutrient deficiency, the deficient nutrient can be fed to the hen. The eggs laid by the hen will contain more of the deliberately introduced nutrient. Since the taste and colour of the eggs do not change much, it remains acceptable to the community with the deficient nutrient, at the same time, treating their deficiency. Back in his country, adding more iron to bread for iron deficient pregnant mothers did not succeed. The enriched bread tasted different, and the stool that came out was black (due to the iron content in the bread). Naturally, the enriched bread became unacceptable to the target group.
The cholesterol content of an egg is enough to meet the daily RDA for cholesterol in an adult. Despite this fact, there were no conformity in research works to blame eggs as causing high cholesterol levels in man. It has been a food taboo all this while. Mr Palestine showed us a study that showed an inverse correlation between the consumption of egg and hypercholesterolaemia. Surely, it does not mean that we have given us more allowance to eat more eggs!
Talking about pregnant mothers, we agreed that poor nutrition during pregnancy can lead to later problems to the unborn child. Some of it includes poor IQ levels and even ADHD. Structural problems to the brain too can manifest as a result of poor nutrition. Between taboo and scientific reasoning, it may be true. Diminished folic acid levels in pregnant mothers increases the risk to develop spina bifida in the newborn. This was proven.
One thing leads to the other. Talking on kids with sluggish mentation, Mr Palestine shared that from where he came from, the doctors gave pure omega 3 fatty acid to these kids. As a result, their IQ levels improved and their learning curves steepened. Really, we were fascinated with how food can exert its effect if put into full use. The adage "we are what we eat" seems to hold more truth in itself.
Getting involved in this culinary discussion, I asked if lamb was better than beef. I have came across a claim that mutton was nutritionally better than beef. My well read Palestinian friend said, in a hadith, a Jew lady was preparing lamb for the prophet, as lamb was the prophet's favorite. She purposefully added poison in the lamb to poison the prophet to death. It did not work, although the Prophet did fell sick. It stopped at that. I do not wish to elaborate something I am not familiar with or doubtful and lacked information. Probably, that supported the fact that lamb is good, seeing that it did neutralized the poison laced in the lamb.
Another interesting taboo about eggs. Mr Palestine came across a journal article in the web, talking about taboos of eggs in Nigeria. The author described the increased risk of being a thief if one consumes too much egg. This view was quickly repudiated by both of us. There is no scientific explanation for such claims. Nevertheless, food taboos and its implication to culture do occur in parts of the world. We just have to respect them as part of their culture and not to detest it.
In the end, we conclude that moderation is the key to answer all problems caused by food. Food too must be eaten in varieties and colours. Monotonous consumption on a type of food can reduce the variety of nutrients needed by us and bring about boredom in our eating pattern. As for the obese epidemic, nothing is better than to keep moving and be physically active.
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