Dietician, Eyram King Dotse has advised Ghanaians to eat healthily and also take less of foods containing carbohydrates because “we have adopted the culture of sitting most of the time.”
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To him, carbohydrates are energy-giving foods and one needs to be active “if they take foods containing carbohydrates. Now, most people sit to work between 7 to 8 hours a day and rather need to eat natural and balanced diets.”
Speaking on chronic disease management on the Happy Morning Show with Sefah-Danquah, Eyram said, “A combination of natural foods helps us a lot. When you pick your plate, it is should be a colorful plate. In a normal Ghanaian diet, we tend to have more carbohydrates on our plates and that has become our eating pattern. We have different classes of food we don’t explore but as a people, we should have a plate with more vegetables.”
On his accord, Ghanaians do not need to think far when we talk about vegetables, “because we have a lot in our locality and these are good. You don’t need to think cabbages and carrots are the only vegetables. The kontomire, garden eggs, and the many things we find in our backyards are vegetables.”
He advised Ghanaians not to overcook their foods as doing so rids it off their nutrients. “Most of the foods we eat come in their natural colors and these colors depict the kind of nutrients contained in these vegetables. So once you overcook a food, it losses all its nutrients.”
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The dietician added that kontomire is green in nature but by the time you finish preparing it and it becomes brown, it means the nutrient is no more. “So by and large, you eat the food without nutrients. When we overcook a particular food, it also losses its natural taste and we end up adding enhancers to them and it happens in most Ghanaian homes.”
He encouraged Ghanaians to eat more of these vegetables in their raw state as they are healthier that way. “You can simply cut your onions and eat your kenkey with it. You don’t need to fry till it’s brown.”
Eyram King Dotse posited that refined foods cause chronic diseases and charged Ghanaians to eat naturally grown foods.
