All food is not good food, says Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley and the Caribbean cannot afford to continue spending hundreds of millions of dollars dealing with non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
She was delivering a pre-recorded message as part of a virtual CARICOM Regional Dialogue yesterday, held in preparation for the United Nations (UN) Food Systems Summit July 26 to 28.
“We have a rich history of using ground provisions, eating fish and eating things that are generally healthy, but we became sucked in by the glamour and glitz of a world that wants us to eat processed foods and an oversupply of salt and fizzy beverages. As we seek to bring about food security for the region, it is vital that we remember to do it the right way . . . . We need to have food which will decrease the level of expenditure we are being forced to undertake to fight [NCDs] which are regrettably killing too many of our citizens,” she said.
The keynote speaker was Guyana’s President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, who said Caribbean people could not continue to eat third-rate food when it could produce that which was first-rate. He added the region could grow its own healthy food but faced major issues such as climate change. (CA)
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