ONE OF the contributors to our Food pages, nutritionist Patricia Thompson, has offered some enlightening comparisons between the nutritional values of some Jamaican food products and their foreign counterparts. And this at a time when WTO negotiations for freer world trade collapsed in Cancun, Mexico, and the Jamaica Manufacturers Association is again returning to its old "buy Jamaican" survival strategy.
Even without formal WTO agreements markets almost everywhere have become more open with domestic and imported goods in fierce competition. Consumers are more aware and sophisticated in shopping for quality and price.
Many local food products, as Mrs. Thompson pointed out in her article, "Jamaican foods vs. foreign goods" last Thursday, are of superior nutritional value to similar foreign products. Much of Jamaican manufacturing is in the agro-processing sector. Superior nutritional quality is a major selling point on both the domestic and export markets.
The foods that are most promoted for healthier eating choices, the nutritionist reminds us, are usually the imported ones since more is known about them than our local foods. This is a problem to be rectified by our local scientists, not only in research but in dissemination and promotion. In one case, which is becoming well known as an example, coconut oil was rescued from skewed research and negative publicity about its health hazards by rigorous research done at the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit and elsewhere.
While the health benefits of the foreign apple is well established in folklore and science, our guava, Mrs. Thompson points out, has four times as much fibre, more potassium, and 19 times the level of vitamin C. On top of that, guava has a delightful tropical fruit flavour which could do extremely well in the international flavour industry.
Coconut water has the bladder-cleansing properties of the much better known and far more heavily promoted cranberry juice but with fewer calories and much more potassium. And we might add that cranberry juice is much more available in the markets of the world as a major nutraceutical commercial product.
While broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts have their nutritional advantages, calalloo has up to four times the calcium content of these vegetables and twice as much iron and vitamin A. Breadfruit and the root tubers, like cassava and sweet potato, are excellent sources of fibre. The health foods market is very heavily concerned about fibre.
Creative packaging and creative marketing can go a long way in bringing the superior qualities of local food products, and other types of products as well, to both the domestic and external markets.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
