FAO embarks on a food sampling exercise across Kenya

Is the food that we’re consuming fresh? Is it nutritious and has it been affected during transportation, storage and processing?  These are the questions that a team from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and stakeholders set out to answer through a food sampling activity from 11^th to 12^th October 2016.  Foods from selected groups including fruits, vegetables and their products, meat, poultry and eggs; fish and sea foods; milk and dairy products were collected to analyse their nutrient content.  The sampling exercise took place at open air food markets, butcheries, milk and fish markets in ten counties across the country- Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisii, Kakamega, Marsabit, Nyeri, Embu, Trans Nzoia, Machakos, Nakuru. The food was first packaged in appropriate materials depending on the transportation temperature required - ambient, chilled or frozen – and then delivered to the National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL), and thereafter airlifted to a laboratory for nutrient analysis.  The primary objectives in sampling is to collect food samples that are representative and to subsequently ensure that changes in composition do not take place between collection and analysis.

Kenya’s current food composition tables were last published in 1993. Since then, a lot has changed in the food systems in Kenya. Areas of change include food production, trade, processing and consumption patterns. This has necessitated a review and update of the current Food Composition Tables (FCT). Where the necessary information on the composition of a food is not available - as is often the case in developing countries - or is inadequate (e.g. it is no longer applicable to the current food supply or the analytical values need to be re-measured using more recent methods), then new foods need to be sampled and analyzed.

Importance of food composition tables

Food composition tables are essential tools for nutritionists and agricultural officers, especially those concerned with the production of nutrient dense foods.  They facilitate monitoring the adequacy of dietary intake, link diet to health and disease, help in planning and prescription of agricultural and nutrition intervention, food security, and for trade, export and legislation. When an inadequate FCT is used, the resulting nutrient intake estimations for populations may be wrong or ultimately result in inappropriate prescription of agri-nutrition interventions and policies.  This could negatively impact on food consumption and even contribute to malnutrition.

At the same time, uneven economic growth, social and economic transformations and other factors are shaping food systems and diets. As a result, the prevalence of overweight, obesity and related non-communicable diseases are increasing while under nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies persist. 

This year, the UN General Assembly declared the decade of action on nutrition (2016-2025), further endorsing the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and the Framework for Action adopted during the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) co-hosted by FAO and WHO in November 2014.

FAO’s Nutrition Strategy

FAO Nutrition Strategy seeks to improve diets and raise levels of nutrition through a people-centered approach.  Research and release of evidence, data and guidelines on food-based nutrition including food composition, nutrition assessment and food-based indicators, and human requirements are at the heart of the strategy.  FAO helps countries to evaluate and monitor nutrition situations, options and put in place agricultural policies and programmes that impact positive on nutrition.  FAO facilitation also involves provision of tools, guidance and support for the scaling up of proper nutrition education and consumer awareness at national and local levels.

FAO coordinates the International Network of Food Data Systems (INFOODS), a worldwide network of food composition experts aiming to improve the quality, availability, reliability and use of food composition data.

In Kenya, FAO is technically and financially supporting the Human Nutrition and Dietetics Unit of Kenya’s Health Ministry and the Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) to review and update the country’s Food Composition Tables.

Technical persons such as nutritionists and country agriculture officials from the ten counties have been equipped with the skills of sampling, selecting, packaging, handling and recording data on selected foods to be analyzed for their nutrient content. They will be instrumental in sampling of foods from markets in their counties.

The first round of a sampling activity took place in August 2016 with a focus on cereals and cereal products, starchy roots, bananas and tubers, legume and pulses, nuts and seeds, milk and dairy products, meats, poultry, eggs, oil and fats.

Nutrients are the most important aspect of food, the components that provide nourishment to the human body. Good nutrition depends on optimal intake of food of good nutritional composition.

Contacts: 

Ruth Njeng’ere Lehmann| Communications - FAO Kenya | Tel: (+254) 726 888 084| Email: [email protected]