Campaign to boost egg consumption launched
Three ministries and a private sector association have launched a national awareness campaign to increase the consumption of eggs in the country.
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The three-year campaign, dubbed: “Egg-cite your day,” is to encourage every Ghanaian to eat an egg a day.
It is a joint project by the Ministries of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Trade and Industry and Health and the Ghana Association of Poultry Farmers (GAPFA).
It is being supported by the American Soybean Association through its initiative known as the ‘Assisting management in the poultry and layer industries by feed improvement and efficiency strategies (AMPLIFIES)’.
Campaign
At the launch of the campaign, which was on the theme: “Consumption of eggs - Building a healthy nation,” the Director of Animal Production at MoFA, Mr Kwamina Arkoful, said the campaign would help educate consumers and the public with messages that would break the myth surrounding the cholesterol associated with egg consumption.
Consumption
He said the per capita consumption of eggs in Ghana hovered around 18 to 24 eggs, compared to 321 in Mexico, 255 in the United States of America (USA), 248 in France, 186 in Portugal and 40 in India.
Ghana, he said, was currently fighting protein deficiency and malnutrition among children and child-bearing women, explaining that per a Food and Agriculture (FAO) 2012 country profile report, nearly a quarter of pre-school children were stunted and affected by chronic malnutrition.
“The underlying cause of Ghanaians’ aversion to egg consumption could be traced to age-old beliefs and misconceptions that have been handed down from generations but which have no factual basis,” he said.
Nutritional benefits
Eggs are a very good source of high-quality protein and good for the development of especially children.
More than half of the protein in an egg is found in the egg white, which also contains other nutrients such as Vitamin B2 and a lower amount of fat and cholesterol.
The whites are rich sources of selenium, Vitamins D, B12, B6 and minerals such as zinc, iron and copper.
An egg a day
The President of the World Poultry Sciences Association, Ghana, Professor George Kwame Aning, who chaired the function, said an increase in the consumption of eggs would lead to the creation of more jobs and affect the entire value chain.
He explained that for years people had been misinformed that eggs contained cholesterol which was not good for human health, “but cholesterol is biosynthesised in the body. Research has shown that cholesterol is not about what we eat”.
“When we consume more eggs, the producers will produce more, since they will have a ready market and they will be bold to invest in the business with little or no support from the government. We have to remember that an egg a day makes a day,” he said.
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