Death in the frying pan
In the 21st century, one would have expected more improvement in the appreciation of our health needs. Unfortunately, a wide gulf of ignorance still surrounds humanity, leading to untimely deaths.
Advertisement
When this is placed beside the poverty situation of African countries and other developing countries the world over, the danger is exacerbated.
One area of concern is the habit of food preparation and consumption, an area of human life that directly affects the health of millions of people due to poverty and ignorance and sometimes the combination of the two.
Careful studies of frying of food and its related dangers can serve to eliminate large amounts of diseases and health risks that still afflict the greater number of the population.
Studies conducted by doctors in India on re-use oil for frying showed that India’s heart disease epidemic increased due to such dietary patterns, and urged the public to avoid reusing any oil for frying food products as it increases the proportion of trans fats, a major source of heart diseases.
According to the doctors and the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), fats in food items are of four types, namely saturated, unsaturated, mono and trans, with the last being the most dangerous as its presence in any oil goes up if it is cooked for a very long time or as soon as it emits smoke.
Fried foods
Sometimes, over-reliance on fried food constitutes one of the areas where many people run into health disasters; indeed, it constitutes what can be described as death in the frying pan.
A careful scrutiny of the situation in Ghana is not different since the country cannot do without oil and the tendency to reuse it over and over again.
Most people, including the Member of Parliament (MP), the business person and even the street hawker, have queued in one way or another for fried foods.
They queue in restaurants, hotels or even at local joints where the cooking oil is reheated when you need a snack or is heated throughout the day for all the snacks. It’s likely no one had ever imagined the type of oil used or how safe the reheated cooking oil is before paying for the food.
All of us patronise and consume fried food products from big restaurants and hotels without knowing how many times the oil was reused. Maybe, both consumers and those who reuse oil don’t even know there are health hazards, or they ignore all danger signs for profit making.
Trans fats
A Professor of Cardiology at AIIMS, New Delhi, Dr Sundeep Mishra, who conducted several studies on reuse oils, said boiling oil for hours and reuse of refined oil leads to the increase of trans fats.
According to him, food habits in humans are such that heart disease becomes common; and the coconut oil being used in southern India for cooking was making them acute heart patients.
The Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) also quoted doctors as saying interesting studies showed that only 13 per cent of educated individuals paid any attention to what they consumed, while the number of heart surgeries among the youth in India had also increased due to the consumption of reuse oil-fried products.
Reuse of oil
A Senior Nutrition Officer at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), Mr Eliasu Yakubu, described reuse oil as deadly and advised the public to avoid reusing oil more than once.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, he said oil must not boil beyond or above maximum capacity, stating: “There are toxic substances referred to as 4-Hydroxy-2-trans-nomenal, which are associated with stroke, atherosclerosis or high blood pressure and cause cancer. The Parkinson’s disease and liver damage can all be associated with how oil is consumed.”
Mr Yakubu noted that clostribium-botulenum, which causes a condition called botulism, is a potential for food poisoning. He pointed out that food particles that remained in the oil after frying, if not properly filtered, could attract bacteria for poisoning.
He indicated that not all oils were meant for deep frying, and recommended vegetable oils for deep frying though they all had side effects.
In addition, he cautioned that no oil was to be reused more than once, and advised against mixing fresh oil into already-used oil, adding that there must be proper filtering.
Mass education
Though the World Health Organisation (WHO) is putting measures in place for the strengthening of cardiovascular diseases, it is not out of place for one to suggest for authorities in Ghana to carry out a broad stakeholder consultation on the reuse of oil and its health hazards.
One would also suggest that the Foods and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) should make it mandatory for cooking oil producers to label the oils in simple language with specifications as to which ones are meant for deep frying or otherwise.
There is the need for mass education of the general public, especially petty traders and restaurant operators who reuse oil more than once to halt the practice so as to save lives, while regular and unannounced visits to hotels and restaurants to check their frying culture or environment is also necessary.
Needless deaths in the frying pan can be avoided, but it would demand a collaborative effort. — GNA
