Don’t take it out on food

Every community has its rules and regulations and to an extent specific culture and norms governing them. It is believed that these culture and norms help in bringing good luck and prosperity in the said communities. Most communities do have their cultures intertwined with food. Yes, food sometimes plays a vital role in traditional rites of some communities.

Food is an important necessity for all humans, irrespective of age, gender, or status. But events in recent times seem to be taking a different turn.

A few weeks ago, a radio programme discussed a wife who got beaten and eventually divorced because she ate the gizzard of a chicken bought by the husband. But what is the fuss is about a wife eating the gizzard of a chicken, you may want to ask. Well, that was exactly my thoughts too.

The husband, I later understood, is from Plateau state. It was argued that it is a taboo for a wife to eat the gizzard of a chicken, especially without the express permission of her husband, even if she wishes to eat it. If she eats the said part of the chicken then she has to be ready to face the consequences which could be a divorce, or even death.  Yes, death!

Many listeners and callers on the programme wondered if such vague cultures still existed in the country. Some however showed solidarity for such cultures, citing some instances in some other parts of the country.  “In one of the states in the country, a lamb has to be sacrificed for the burial of a parent. The son of the deceased, who should slaughter the animal, is expected not eat from the meet. If he eats he will die,” said Chinedu Okpara, an Abuja resident.

For Aisha Tukur, an Abuja based nutritionist, food taboos are unfair and unrealistic especially in these modern day and time. “These food taboos and habits have great impact on the health of the community. Sometimes these taboos continue even amongst the educated members of the society. Most of the food taboos in Nigeria work mostly against the less privileged, including pregnant women, children and the elderly. They are sometimes deprived of the cheapest source of nutritional value of these foods.”

Mrs Obiageli Uche, a housewife, says most times they have no choice because if these traditions or cultures are not followed there are always great repercussion. “There is the assumption that both incidental and accidental defiance of the taboo will be followed by some kind of misfortune to the offender such as sickness, poverty or even the death of the offender or one of the offender’s relatives. In some communities, a person who fails in all endeavors in life is believed to have eaten a forbidden food, that way he has committed a breach or taboo which mostly isn’t easy to rectify.”

Mrs. Oluwatoyin Kehinde, a human right activist, is of the opinion that women are always the ones who have to face consequences of these cultures. She says most of these cultures are targeted at women and she asks the question why. She says most of these taboos will have to be removed from our societies, if we really want the progress of the family and the society at large. She asks “Do they mean to tell me that it is only the men that can eat nutritional and good food? They have marginalized us in all ways and now they are trying to marginalize us under the pretence of food taboos and culture.”

John Sammy, who is a nutritionist, says that most of these food taboos only deprive the innocent victims the basic nutritional contents of the said forbidden food. “If God did not want us to eat these things, he wouldn’t in the first place make them available to us.” These strange customs should be given a second thought because they tend to create a crack in a family.

These cultures should not be a stumbling block to our homes, we should try and live life the way our creator has ordained it for us. We should try as much as possible to untie and unbound ourselves from these cultural bondage in the disguise of food taboos.