Nutrition
‘Kpokpoi’
‘Kpokpoi’ is a traditional meal of the Gas during their annual Homowo festival.
It is prepared with primary ingredients of steamed and fermented cornmeal, palmnut oil and okro.
Ms Alberta Dede Kuma Tackey, Chief Executive Officer of Tackey’s Kitchen takes readers through how ‘Kpokpoi’ is prepared.
Ingredients
– 1 kilogram of maize
– 2 kilogram of palm nut
– 5 fingers of okro
– 5 large fresh tomatoes
– 5 large smoked fish (salmon)
– 7 large fresh pepper
– 2 small ginger
– 2 garlic
-salt
Preparation of Palmnut soup
– Wash palm nuts and boil it for about 50 minutes.
– When ready pour the boiled nuts into a mortar and pound until the nuts look fibrous and the black kernels are loose.
-Pour the mixture into a large bowl and add water (Use your hand to take the fibre part of the mixture until you get liquid free of fibre and kernels. (Use a colander to separate the juice from the fibre)
– Wash fish with clean water and put it on fire.
– Blend ginger, onion, pepper, garlic and add to fish.
– Add salt and steam the mixture for about 4-6 minutes.
-Wash fresh tomatoes and add it to the steaming pot.
– Proceed with pouring the palm nut solution over the steaming pot with fish, and others.
– Blend steamed tomato and add to the mixture
– Stir and leave soup to cook for some time (Stirring thoroughly and carefully to prevent the dry fish from breaking into pieces).
Corn for ‘Kpokpoi’
-Remove any bad grain or stones from maize. (Soak corn overnight or three days)
– Wash in clean water and grind into smooth flour.
– Sprinkle water on the ground maize and leave it for some time.
– Pour the corn flour into a bowl and flake with your hands to make flour smooth. (You can also sieve the milled corn on a wooden mat)
-Fill a saucepan with water to about halfway and place a clay pot steamer or any utensil that has little bits of holes in them that steam can pass through.
– When the water starts boiling sprinkle corn flour in sieve.
– Cover tightly and leave to steam for about 15 minutes.
– When ready, fetch red oil and mix with the steamed corn to get the yellowish colour.
-Also prepare salt water which will be sprinkled onto the steam corn flour before pounding and set aside.
– Pour yellowish mixture into mortar, sprinkle a little bit of salt water, palm oil onto it and start pounding.
– Pour out into a bowl. You can choose to add cooked okro to it.
-Sieve the pounded ‘kpokpoi’ using the wooden sieve. This makes it finer and separates the rough clumps from the others.
-Serve with your already cooked palm-nut soup.
By Linda Abrefi Wadie
Egg stew is a traditional dish from Ghana. It is very healthy and easy to prepare. The dish is traditionally served with rice, plantain and any other meal of one’s choice.
Ingredients
-1 litre of vegetable oil
-2 fresh salmon
-10 large tomatoes
-5 large onions
– 6 eggs
-3 tablespoonful of pepper
-1 tablespoonful of powdered garlic and ginger
-1 tin of mackerel
– I large green pepper
-3 tablespoonful of tomatoes paste
Preparation
-Wash tomatoes, onion, green pepper and blend
-Put oil on fire and add onion and powdered pepper to it
-When onions turn golden brown, add blended tomatoes and tomato paste to it. (Allow it to cook for 3 minutes.)
-Add eggs and salmon to stew and leave it for a minute before stirring.
– Add seasoning to the stew and serve.
By Linda Abrefi Wadie
Every baby deserves a healthy start. But in Ghana, too many children are being born already behind, too small, too fragile, and at far greater risk than their peers. Low birth weight, defined as weighing less than 2.5 kilograms at birth, affects an estimated one in seven newborns in this country.
That is a significant proportion of children beginning life at a disadvantage, often due to preventable causes.
Children born with low birth weight face a steeply uphill journey from their very first breath. They are more susceptible to birth asphyxia, infections, hypothermia, and respiratory complications.
They are more likely to die in their first month of life. Those who survive face higher risks of stunting, impaired cognitive development, and a greater likelihood of developing non-communicable diseases including type two diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease later in life.
Low birth weight does not just harm the child today. It shapes their health for decades.
The most powerful determinant of a baby’s birth weight is what the mother eats, and how healthy she is before and during pregnancy. Research in Ghana has consistently shown that maternal anaemia, poor dietary diversity, and inadequate antenatal care are all strongly linked to low birth weight.
A study in Cape Coast found that mothers with low dietary diversity during pregnancy were significantly more likely to deliver low birth weight babies. In Northern Ghana, maternal anaemia in both the first and third trimesters of pregnancy increased the risk of low birth weight. What a woman eats is what her baby weighs.
Education matters too. Mothers with secondary or higher education have been found to be less likely to deliver a low-birth-weight baby, a difference attributed to better nutrition knowledge, improved antenatal care attendance, and healthier health-seeking behaviour overall.
This points clearly to the need for a whole-of-society response, not just a clinical one.
Ghana has made some progress on low birth weight, but the burden remains unacceptably high and in some parts of the country, it is worsening. Other important risk factors must not be overlooked.
Adolescent pregnancy, which remains prevalent in several regions, is strongly associated with low birth weight because young mothers are often still growing and competing with the fetus for nutrients.
Malaria infection during pregnancy, particularly in endemic areas of Ghana, damages the placenta and restricts nutrient transfer, further increasing the likelihood of a low-birth-weight baby.
These risk factors compound the effects of poor maternal nutrition and limited antenatal care. Leaders in government, health facilities, and communities must prioritise maternal nutrition before, during, and after pregnancy.
Reducing low birth weight is not complicated. It requires feeding mothers well, supporting them through antenatal care, ensuring access to iron-folic acid supplementation and malaria prevention during pregnancy, and treating their health as a national priority, not an afterthought.
Feature article by Women, Media and Change under its Nourish Ghana: Advocating for Increased Leadership to Combat Malnutrition project
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