Nearly all "healthy eating" advice is written around food nobody here buys. The principles behind it work perfectly well with fufu, ndole, plantain and beans; what changes is the proportions on the plate and the amount of salt, oil and sugar.
The plate
- Half of it vegetables: ndole, huckleberry, okra, bitterleaf, cabbage, tomato, carrot, greens of any kind.
- A quarter protein: beans, groundnuts, fish, egg, chicken, meat. Beans and groundnuts cost a fraction of meat and do the same job.
- A quarter starch: fufu, rice, plantain, yam, cocoyam, maize. This is usually the part that needs to shrink.
- Fruit most days: mango, pawpaw, orange, banana, guava, whatever is in season and cheap.
The three things worth cutting
- Salt, mostly hidden in bouillon cubes and seasoning powders. Halve them. Build flavour with onion, garlic, ginger, pepper, njansang, country onion and basil.
- Sugary drinks. Soft drinks, sweetened juice, sugar in tea. Water is the drink.
- Fried food and heavy oil. Not banned, just less often. Boil, steam, grill or stew more than you fry.
Eating well on little money
- Beans, groundnuts, eggs and small dried fish give the most nutrition per franc in this country.
- Buy vegetables in season, from the market rather than the shop.
- Cook in a batch and reheat properly, rather than buying prepared food.
- Red palm oil in ordinary amounts carries vitamin A. Use it as the oil rather than adding it on top.
What this prevents
High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and stroke are rising fast in Cameroonian towns, and the change in diet is a large part of why. Those conditions are expensive to treat and cheap to avoid, and the avoidance is mostly what is on the plate, plus movement.
What to ignore
- Detox teas, slimming teas, and anything sold as a fat burner. They do not work, some damage the liver or kidneys.
- Skipping meals to lose weight. It leads to eating more later, and is dangerous for anyone on diabetes medicine.
- Advice built entirely on imported food you cannot buy or afford.
- Cutting out whole food groups on the strength of something read online.
