The Ghana National Eggs Campaign Secretariat (GNECS) has organized a training workshop for health staff, particularly, nutrition officers in the Northern Region on the benefits of egg consumption.
According to the Secretariat, the training is to help educate nutrition officers in the region on the importance of eggs and along with their health benefits. The nutrition officers, in turn, are expected to sensitize the public on the benefits of same.
Speaking to the media in Tamale; the Northern Regional capital, Comfort Kyerewaa Acheampong, the National Coordinator of the Ghana National Eggs Campaign Secretariat said, the Secretariat found it necessary to collaborate with the Ghana Health Service (GHS), especially the nutrition department, in order to educate the public on the importance of eating eggs.
It is also to help dispel the myths surrounding the consumption of eggs among some people in the country.
This Particular training is specifically for nutrition officers of the Ghana Health Service. We are using the Ghana Health Service nutrition officers because they are professionals and have direct contact with citizenry and their words are taken in high esteem.”
We know that eggs have a lot of myths throughout the world. Every country, every community has its own myth, and everybody is trying to break these myths or to help people overcome them because they have seen that, the egg is an essential food, and we want everybody to enjoy it.”
“It is simple and cheap. If you cannot afford fish or meat, the egg is there, and it is very cheap and can digest very easily for the benefit of your health.”
Acheampong continued to say that “these nutrition officers are going to be trainer of trainers. They will go back to their districts, and they will work with their colleagues, and they will also take it to the hospitals and to the people.”
Acheampong also encouraged Ghanaians to eat eggs with any local food, because eggs can be eaten with all kinds of food without any health consequences.
On his part, Kwabena Adade Kusi, Public Health Practitioner, also used the opportunity to admonish the public to take the consumption of eggs seriously.
Some of the nutrition officers who took part in the training told BusinessWeek that, the training was helpful to them as their job is to educate people, especially pregnant women and children, on the importance of balanced diets.
The Northern Regional Nutrition Officer, Hajia Azara Amadu, in her welcome addressed reiterated the important role protein play in the human body, particularly children, pregnant women and the aged.
She stressed that egg is cheaper than other animal sources of protein and even though most households keep fowls they hardly consume eggs but rather sell it resulting in the “increasing prevalence of malnutrition in the region”.
A lot of misconceptions are out there in the public domain that egg is not good for mature people because it contains a lot of fat. From this training, we hope to get the needed evidence about egg that will help us educate our target groups well and change their behaviour towards increased egg consumption” she noted.
