Following aNew vision newspaper article titled “The amount of chemicals found in the vegetables are beyond the acceptable levels”, experts have come out to give guidance on how best to make conventional vegetables safe for human consumption.
Hajarah Nantume, the founder and executive director Balimisa Consultants Limited, said if Ugandans are to thrive, there is a need for a healthy population, in order to realize a Wealthy Nation.
She observed that according to an investigation conducted by New Vision, farmers use dangerous chemicals such as Mancozeb, Deltamethrin and Cypermethrin, among others, which pose detrimental health risks to humans, including predisposing them to cancer.
“Since the vegetables were tested by a certified government analytical laboratory and the results were alarming as it was indicated, I wish to take this opportunity to give this useful information and knowledge to save millions of Ugandan lives from diverse effects of bioaccumulation and bio-magnification contributing to rampant levels of non-communicable diseases (NCDs),” she said.
For a fact, the local markets are highly saturated with conventional vegetables which is attributed to lack of government inspection check points for Mrls and also failure of the farmers to adopt sustainable vegetable production systems.
This, Nantume said, is due to inadequate knowledge on organic/agroecology vegetable production and a few who produce organic vegetables that cannot satisfy the demand because of a high daily consumption rate of these groceries such as tomatoes and cabbages.
She advised that in order to make these available conventional groceries safe for human consumption, there is a need to employing traditional or indigenous methods that are tested, trusted and effective.
Advice
- Deep your groceries such as tomatoes in a mixture of charcoal dust and cold water for at least three hours before consumption.
- Soak the groceries in milk overnight and pour away the milk.
Charcoal dust mixed with water, according to Nantume, works the same way as milk because upon mixing in water, it becomes activated with a negative electrical charge which attracts the positively charged toxins through adsorption rendering food free from harmful toxins therefore, charcoal dust is a good chelator of the toxin residues in groceries.
She explained that the quantities of charcoal dust and cold water depend on the quantities of your groceries, saying the same solution works well if ingested.
“The more sustainable way to provide safe food is through embracing sustainable farming systems/technologies of vegetable production by increasing the number of farmers adopting to them.
“Balimisa Consultants Limited has been conducting farmer trainings on organic vegetable growing, especially tomatoes. However, there is need for collaborative farmer trainings with other organic/agroecology actors,” Nantume said.
