Maureen Ojinaka
Enugu – A Nutritionist, Mrs Henrietta Ugwu on Friday, urged parents to always provide balanced diet that contains appropriate nutrients for their children to nourish their cells for healthy living.
Ugwu, who is a Nutrition Officer with the Enugu State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Friday.
She said that healthy foods were those foods that nourished the cells in human bodies to give life and support healthy living.
“Healthy food are those when you ingest, it nourishes the cells inside your body to give you life, while unhealthy foods are those foods which do not promote the health of the cells in your body.
“ You know that when you sustain a wound, naturally, that wound heals and what really gives the healing is the nourished cells that have been nourished by the healthy food you took earlier,”she said.
The nutritionist called on parents to always have family menu, adding that vegetable and fruits with nutrients should always be added to children’s menu to promote good and healthy children.
She advised Nigerians to try to have a small family garden, where they could plant vegetables for their family menu, saying“whereby it is possible to plant, they should make sure they buy healthy vegetables from the market.”
Ugwu said that it was healthier to buy healthy vegetable and consume them the same day to get sufficient nutrients for the cells and the body as a whole.
According to the United Nation, food safety is key to achieving several UN Sustainable Development Goals and is a shared responsibility between governments, producers and consumers.
UN report says everybody has a role to play from farm to table to ensure that the food consumed is safe and will not cause damages to human health.
The theme of the 2019 World Food Safety Day is “Food Safety, everyone’s business”.