By Jude Atupulazi
Very often I would get home and feel a sense of survival, just as I would often feel lucky to have attained my age. What gives me these feelings is simple: I could have died in a number of ways while outside, as, indeed, many others have died. People have died from stray bullets while relaxing in their shops; some have died in avoidable accidents too.
I know a woman who was relaxing in front of her shop one evening in Awka and a reckless driver veered off the road and used her as a wedge. She died. People have equally died in armed robbery attacks or in the den of kidnappers. Just so many things can snuff the life out of anyone. But we are here in our teens, twenties, thirties, seventies and beyond, still alive and well.
That we have attained this period of our lives despite all the aforementioned happenstances is more than enough reason to be thankful to God. This is why I believe that to survive any day is a miracle, for many have gone.
Yet, we still have to be watchful to avoid any of many things that can kill us or make our lives miserable. But although this is a very difficult thing to do, we have to continue trying.
Of all the things that can give us wahala, I pick on the things we eat. Yes, what we consume as food. I can say that among the biggest killers in our society today are food vendors. If actually we know how many of these people prepare what they sell to us, many of us will cease eating outside or even buying things and bringing them home.
You don’t even have to go far to see what I am saying. Along the roads you will see people selling fried yams. They display them in trays or whatever, without trying to cover them. Around them are people passing and stirring dust which settles on the yams. You may see someone nearby dropping a large amount of sputum or blowing out mucus from their nose on which flies will feast and then perch on the yams.
One day as I was filling my car’s tank at a fuel station, I watched a young man selling garden eggs stop by the roadside to urinate. He took a kettle of water with him and washed his genital after the business and placed the kettle so close to the garden eggs he was carrying in a wheel barrow. I did not see him wash his hands well and it is certain that he would use the same hands to arrange the garden eggs and sell to us.
What about bread distributors? Take a look inside their supply vans and you will see the loaves scattered on the floor on which they are standing. Even if the loaves are wrapped in water proofs, they are still lying on the floor and collecting dust and germs from the feet of the suppliers. When you buy the bread and open the wrap, your hand has touched the contaminated wrap and you will use the same hand to eat the bread.
Just last week, I was at a motor park and I was closely watching a young woman selling bananas. Some of these bananas were lying on the ground on which people walk, spit, urinate and do just about anything. I knew that eventually she would place the bananas on her table and sell to people. Now, how many times have you bought bananas and washed them before eating? Is it not with the same hands you use in peeling off the banana skins that you will use in touching them before eating? Only God knows the amount of germs you have introduced into your system by doing do.
What about what one sees in restaurants? It doesn’t matter whether it is a roadside eating joint or a big time one. Everything depends on the level of hygiene of those doing the cooking. People have complained about seeing inside their soups things like used condoms, cockroach parts or whole cockroaches, and just about anything. I don’t want to talk about the many flies that could have fallen inside many pots of soup while they are being cooked.
What about the garri we buy? Many garri sellers don’t put them in sealed containers before bringing them out to sell. Where they keep them, rats, mice and cockroaches do owambe dance on top of the garri in the night and you know this is a primary source of contracting Lassa Fever!
Chizoba anyi! (God save us!)
So, you see, there are many ways we can easily eat what will kill us if not that God is protecting us. Many have got cancers from what they consume too. You know that these days some devilish fruit vendors do things like washing the fruits in dirty, contaminated water and using chemicals to ripen the fruits by force. Stories even abound about chicken sellers injecting the chickens with substances that make the chickens big in order to attract buyers. Indeed, what have people not done to make quick money?
These practices are everywhere. From Lagos to Kano to Sapele to Obollo Afor and to Awka, food is everywhere – suya sizzling by the roadside, moi-moi wrapped in leaves, zobo in reused bottles. They are affordable, they are delicious, they are part of our culinary culture. But when they are prepared in unhygienic environments, they can cost us more than money – our lives!
Now let’s do some researching.
What Makes Unhygienic Food Dangerous?
It’s not the food itself, but what joins it along the way – bacteria: Salmonella, E. coli, Staphylococcus from unwashed hands, dirty water, flies landing on uncovered food.
Chemicals: food cooked in old engine oil drums, with paracetamol to make meat soft, or preserved with unsafe levels of additives.
Physical contaminants: dust from roadsides, sand, small stones, pieces of plastic or metal shavings from grinding machines never cleaned.
Dirty Water: using water from gutters or unwashed buckets to wash plates, meat, or make drinks.
The Common Dangers We Face
Food Poisoning (Gastroenteritis)
Symptoms: Sudden vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach cramps, fever hours after eating. This is the most common. In severe cases it leads to dehydration and hospital admission.
Typhoid Fever
This is caused by Salmonella typhi. Very common from food and drinks handled by carriers who don’t wash hands after toilet, or from contaminated water used to make ice, zobo, or fruit juice.
Cholera
There are outbreaks in Nigeria every rainy season, majorly from food washed or prepared with contaminated water. This causes severe watery diarrhoea that can kill within hours.
Hepatitis A & E
Viral infection of the liver from faecal contamination, often from roadside salads, sliced fruits, and cold drinks.
Helicobacter pylori and Stomach Ulcers
This is linked to unhygienic food preparation and sharing of unwashed plates and spoons.
Worms and Parasites
Here, we can have tapeworm from undercooked suya, roundworm from unwashed vegetables grown with sewage water.
Long-Term Effects
Repeated exposure to smoke from firewood cooked in enclosed, dirty kitchens and to chemical additives is linked to kidney problems, liver damage, and even some cancers.
The Foods to Watch Out For the Most
Meat and Suya: exposed to flies, dust, and exhaust smoke for hours. Sometimes they are cut on the same dirty wood used for years.
Sliced Fruits (pawpaw, pineapple, watermelon): the knife and tray rarely washed are good conveyors. The seller handles money and fruit with same hands.
Street Drinks (zobo, kunu, tiger nut, palm wine, iced water): bottles reused without sterilization, ice made from tap water, sugar exposed.
Fried Foods (puff-puff, yam, akara): oil reused until it turns black — that black oil produces toxic compounds.
Food cooked by roadside: Lead from car exhaust settles directly on uncovered pots.
How to Stay Safe without Stopping Street Food
We can’t and shouldn’t stop eating outside, but we can be smarter:
Look before you buy! Is the place clean? Does the seller wash hands? Are foods covered with net or glass? Is there a waste bin or are flies everywhere? (Note that everywhere can still look clean on the outside but in the kitchen the opposite happens).
Hot food is safer: buy food that is cooked and served hot, not food sitting lukewarm since morning.
Watch the water: avoid drinks with ice you didn’t see the source of. Ask if water is from a sealed sachet.
Oil colour matters: If the frying oil is dark brown or black, walk away.
Separate money and food: A good seller uses one hand or has someone else collecting money.
Wash again at home: Re-wash sliced fruits and vegetables even if they look clean.
Your stomach may be strong, but your kidneys and liver remember everything. The N500 you save on cheap, unhygienic food, can become N50,000 in hospital bills.
Eat smart. Your body is your first home!
But above all, we can observe all these precautionary measures and still come out worse than those who don’t. It is therefore only God that can save us.
Therefore, I say, Chizoba Anyi!
