When Unga prices go up; alternatives for your diet

Unga prices go up and your budget no longer allows you to enjoy your ugali dinner every night. How then can you now feed your family while still maintaining a balanced healthy diet?

Since Kenyans are known for not having variety when it comes to meals, the current unga prices are a blessing in disguise. Kenyans can use this time to experiment with other foods that don’t necessarily get invited to their dinner tables.

Here is an eye-opening message from “Ugali” to all Kenyans.

“Although wheat flour prices are lower than my unga, my hope is that my dedicated Kenyans won’t be eating chapatis every night. I would like to tell you a little story about ugali, and what I have come to conclude with every invitation to your dinner tables. Don’t get me wrong, as Ugali I love all Kenyans and appreciate the love they have for me, especially since I am the staple food in the country.

As unga prices go up, I would like to take this opportunity to speak for my immediate cousins (potatoes, green bananas- commonly known as matoke, and arrowroots), distant cousins (beans- all varieties, and peas), and my friends the vegetables (sukuma wiki, spinach, cabbage, kienyeji mbogas, carrots, and tomatoes).

My immediate cousins, distant cousins, and friends unlike me (Ugali), have not felt or experienced the love from most Kenyans. They are now urging us to consider them and invite them more often than not to our dinner tables. My immediate cousins- the potatoes, the matokes and the arrowroots are claiming they have more nutrients and even fiber that our bodies can greatly benefit from and enjoy the change. They are urging Kenyans to eat them together with my distant cousins- the beans who have more proteins, minerals, and antioxidant compounds that will improve our health and protect us from diseases.


My friends- the vegetables don’t want to be left behind. They are promising to help us feel satiety quicker due to the fiber content in them, and even guard human cells against the toxic chemicals present in our environment.”

As Ugali’s message to Kenyans challenges and encourages us to experiment with other foods, I believe the practical way for everyone is to experiment with what they have available. Let’s say you only have beans, some sukuma wiki, and some sweet potatoes. How then can you feed your family with that?

Whether you are single or a parent, you can make soup with what you have. Instead of chopping the sukumawiki very finely, you can wash it nicely and cut it into medium size including its stock. The beans will provide the protein, sweet potato- carbohydrates, fiber, and give your meal a nice sweet creamy flavor, and sukumawiki- minerals, vitamins, protein, and even antioxidants. Such ingredients can prepare a healthy and scrumptious meal for the whole family to enjoy.

Looking at how other communities and cultures feed their families can also help Kenyans maximize the food resources that we have, and even improve our health. At the university, my Chinese friend encouraged me to drink tomato soup- she said that her parents referred to it as a cancer killer. In my mind, tomato soup meant blending 10-15 tomatoes together to make the soup.


To my Chinese friend, tomato soup meant just boiling one tomato in water with some black pepper and a little salt to taste; a good example of how we can learn from other communities.

With the current high Unga prices, I urge every mwananchi to use this time to be more creative with their meals by introducing other foods in order to reap the health benefits.

Variety in meals = less dependency on Ugali = Kenyans enjoying more health benefits

 

Jacinta Kemboi, President of Step by Step to Health
MSc (Food and Nutritional Sciences-U.S.A), Certified Food Scientist, Health Coach
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://stepbysteptohealth.org