World Population Day: Effects on Food Security, Insecurity and Food Safety

World Population Day: Effects on Food Security, Insecurity and Food Safety: Every 11th July of each year is celebrated as #WorldPopulation, issues often discussed are the things giving the world a huge problem

World population day is an annual event, observed on July 11 every year, which seeks to raise awareness of global population issues.

The event was established by the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme in 1989. It was inspired by the public interest in Five Billion Day on July 11, 1987, the approximate date on which the world’s population reached five billion people. World Population Day aims to increase people’s awareness on various population issues such as the importance of family planning, gender equality, poverty, maternal health and human rights.

Other issues like Food insecurity which lead to other issues like health problem most often may not be considered, most especially because these issues is been faced by African(Underdeveloped countries).

I saw an advert demo that shows a cat ruining into a Milk splash, the advert shows she loved it and licked with so much passion… But the truth is 99% of cats are lactose intolerance; which means they hold the truth and sell you the lies you really want to buy.

Food insecurity is defined as the situation where people of all age, race, ethnic group etc are unable to have access to healthy food on daily basis (Let me say something here; a person may have access to food but the moment it’s not “healthy” it is still food insecurity. As a result of food insecurity, people suffer from chronic hunger and poor nutrition, and are, therefore, less likely to have healthy(System failure etc), and productive lives.

How do we combat food insecurity.

I once explained to someone, Other African countries may have issues with having access to food, I mean healthy food but Nigeria shouldn’t… We have lot of natural food, non adulterated healthy food; all we need to use the right incorporation.

For example; I worked on the effect of walnut of quality attribute of bread as my final year work, one of the formulation is perfect for diabetes people, the other are okay for everyone who is trying to stay away from too much carbs. I have worked on Power protein food and all of other are produced using natural composite, I have worked on drink using natural preservative. I will love to say the first problem with food insecurity is food adulteration. People want to have enough food –  companies want food and drink to be available but most of these companies do not care if it is for consumption.

 

Now that we know what food insecurity is, what do you think is the cause behind it? It is widely agreed upon that the main cause of food insecurity is poverty. Poverty makes it very difficult for people to grow their own food and also to buy enough food. Currently, it is estimated that over 1.5 billion people live on less than $1 a day, and are, therefore, unable to buy enough food to keep them healthy. Due to the low-income levels in many areas, it is also not possible for people to grow their own food because they do not have money to invest in agriculture.

 

The second leading cause of food insecurity is the growth of the human population. The human population has been growing steadily, and the amount of food needed to feed the population has also increased. Overall, the human population is expected to increase by about 2 billion people by 2050, and this will put a serious strain on the availability of food. Although currently enough food is produced to feed every human on Earth, as populations grow, the amount of people suffering from food insecurity will increase.

 

The increase in the human population will be particularly difficult in poor countries where people already struggle to obtain food and will have more trouble as the population increases. Additionally, the growing population can also influence food insecurity by limiting the amount of food available for consumption. As the human population increases, there is a higher demand for alternative fuel sources, such as biofuels. In recent years, this demand has led to large amounts of corn being used to create biofuels, thus reducing the amount of corn available to feed people.

–  Study

 

In most African countries, I will love to say the major cause of food insecurity is that people do not care about what they eat, for example, to live a healthy and productive life, it is recommended that people consume around 2, 200 kilocalories each day. When you look at the human population as a whole, the average person consumes around 3,000 kilocalories per day, and people who live in industrialized countries have been reported to consume even more.

 

The most painful part is some people consumes more than those kilocalories in a meal, which means you can be wealthy is still battle with food insecurity. The first cause of food insecurity is the inability to people to understand what they need to eat.

 

Battling Food Insecurity

The first thing to do is probably the nation’s work then followed by her citizens.

 

The countries should engage in agricultural operation like, ‘Operation Feed the Nation’ and it relatives.

 

Food agency should ensure that Food industries follow the guideline set up by Food Security (Well, food security is just exactly the opposite of food insecurity). as defined by the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security, means that all people, at all times, must have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.

 

If food are available but not secure, we can not really define it as Food Security, probably we can define it as Food Availability.

Before Insulin was discovered by Sir Frederick G Banting (pictured), Charles H Best and JJR Macleod at the University of Toronto in 1921 and it was subsequently purified by James B Collip; Many children was in diabetic coma for long period of time, which means children do have diabetes. This leads me to a conspiracy on how children food industries put against children and most parent do not even care about the level of sugar inside what their children consumes.

 

I once knew of a company that makes cake, uses some flour and sugar that is almost same as the flour – if we are to calculate the digestible glucose in the flour plus the sugar they use, your kids are probably just consuming “SUGAR” and then you are preparing them toward cardiovascular diseases in the future due to your carelessness.

 

This lead me to Food Safety, to be sincere I do not believe food from most food industries are safe for consumption, if we have to follow the guidelines set down by Food safety itself.

 

Food safety is used as a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a similar illnesses resulting from the ingestion of a common food is known as a food-borne disease outbreak. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potential health hazards.

 

Food defense is the protection of food products from intentional contamination or adulteration by biological, chemical, physical, or radiological agents introduced for the purpose of causing harm. It addresses additional concerns including physical, personnel and operational security.

 

Food defense is one of the four categories of the food protection risk matrix. which include: food safety, which is based on unintentional or environmental contamination that can cause harm; Food fraud, which is based on intentional deception for economic gain; and Food quality, which may also be affected by profit-driven behaviour but without intention to cause harm.

 

Overarching these four categories is food security, which deals with individuals having access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food protection is the umbrella term encompassing both food defense and food safety. These six terms are often conflated.

 

Along with protecting the food system, food defense also deals with prevention, protection, mitigation, response and recovery from intentional acts of adulteration.

 

In considering industry to market practices, food safety considerations include the origins of food including the practices relating to food labeling, food hygiene, food additives and pesticide residues, as well as policies on biotechnology and food and guidelines for the management of governmental import and export inspection and certification systems for foods. In considering market to consumer practices, the usual thought is that food ought to be safe in the market and the concern is safe delivery and preparation of the food for the consumer.

 

Food can transmit pathogens which can result in the illness or death of the person or other animals. The main mediums are bacteria, viruses, mold, and fungus (which is Latin for mushroom). It can also serve as a growth and reproductive medium for pathogens. In developed countries there are intricate standards for food preparation, whereas in lesser developed countries there are fewer standards and less enforcement of those standards. Another main issue is simply the availability of adequate safe water, which is usually a critical item in the spreading of diseases. In theory, food poisoning is 100% preventable. However this cannot be achieved due to the number of persons involved in the supply chain, as well as the fact that pathogens can be introduced into foods no matter how many precautions are taken. The five key principles of food hygiene, according to WHO, are:

• Prevent contaminating food with pathogens spreading from people, pets, and pests.
• Separate raw and cooked foods to prevent contaminating the cooked foods.
• Cook foods for the appropriate length of time and at the appropriate temperature to kill pathogens.
• Store food at the proper temperature.
• Use safe water and safe raw materials”.

 

–  Wikipedia

 

With the extract from Wikipedia you can also agree with me, and Dr. Mercola that for you to live a healthy live, you need to consume home made food often than industrial food.

 

As we celebrate World Population Day this year, let have it in mind that Food Insecurity is not the main problem of the world as before, but rather now food safety.

 

Let eat healthy, drink healthy.

 

Happy World Population Day

 

Temi Badmus, Food Scientist.