Poor dietCause of nearly half a million Ghanaians falling ill

Close to half a million (420,000) Ghanaians fall sick every year due to poor diet, Mrs. Victoria Tsekpo, Acting Director of Women in Agriculture and Development of Ministry of Food and Agriculture, has said.

Speaking yesterday Monday April 14 in Accra, she said it has become important for the nation to work

out measures to maintain food safety.

Mrs. Tsekpo was speaking at the opening of a four-day workshop on healthy meat processing for 25 extension officers and meet processors from Greater Accra and Eastern regions.

She said meat sellers in Accra often processed meat in unhygienic conditions, thus contaminating it and making it unsafe for consumption.

Mrs. Tsekpo said smoked meat, a traditional way of processing meat, was very nutritious yet some processors made it unhealthy by using the wrong method of treatment.

"When meat is smoked, the fat in it is extracted, so it becomes healthy
and nutritious for consumption but when the meat is exposed to smoke for a
long period it becomes hazardous to the body."

Research, she said, had shown that improved methods of meat and fish smoking was very healthy.

Mrs. Tsekpo advised the participants to educate their colleagues on the skills they would acquire after the workshop to promote safe meat processing.

The Rev. Mrs. Nyuieme Adiepena, Head of Additional Value for Food Process Unit, giving an overview of the workshop, said the training would involve more practical work to enable participants to be acquainted with some scientific methods of meat processing.

She said topics to be treated during the period would include food monitoring, meat smoking and good marketing practices.