WORLD Food Day is a time to be reminded about the kind of food we should eat daily.
That’s the view of Julia Hara, a student at the Solomon Islands National University (SINU) who is currently undertaking her Bachelor of Teaching Home Economics (In service).
She added the World Food Day 2024 last week and stressed out how important it is for everyone to consume the right amount of food.
“World Food Day is a time for us to be informed or reminded about the kind of food we need to take and the right amount of food we should take.
“We need to identify what kind of crops and plants we need to plant and cook for our consumption in the homes,” Ms Hara said.
She said with this year’s theme: “Right to Food for a Better Life and Better Future”, it means that everyone has the right to take food.
She added that she and her fellow class mates who are studying similar unit called “HEC703-Food Management” have their own theme for this year’s World Food Day.
And thats, ‘Right to Nutritious Food for Education, Health and Sustainability.’
She said, with this theme, they focus mainly on how they can take the right portion of food.
“Everyone has the right take food, but one has to take food in its right portion. By taking the right amount/portion, we can help reduce the risk of having non-communicable diseases (NCDs),” Ms Hara said.
She added that in terms of local food, when we consume local food in excessive amounts, the risk to get non-communicable disease (NCDs) from it is low, unlike processed food.
“Processed food has high risks to getting NCDs if one consumes it, whether less or excessive amounts.
“With this, I think we should promote local foods more than processed food. Thus, we all need and should work hard in this game.
“Nowadays, we depend more on processed food than our very own local food.
“We need to go back and be like our ancestors or our people in the villages where they live on mostly grown local foods,” Ms Hara said.
She added that in the Solomon Islands, there are enough resources.
“We just need to work hard, regain how our people in the past used to grow food and we can benefit and sustain ourselves with local food.”
She added processed food are the most convenient food in most areas.
“But we also have to understand and always remember that it brings us NCDs.
“Therefore, even though our local food can be quiet hard to access, we need to grow and eat more local foods than processed food.
“This helps us not only present but as well as in the future. This is to sustain us and for our betterment in the future,” Ms Hara said.
By AGNES MENANOPO
Solomon Star, Honiara
