By Basillioh Mutahi
Several well-known brands of maize flour have been taken off supermarket shelves in Kenya, after a warning about unsafe levels of a poisonous substance known as aflatoxin.
This has led to widespread concern, as maize is the country’s main staple. The flour is used to prepare ugali, a cooked starchy paste the key ingredients of which are just the flour and water. Maize is also used to prepare another variant of the staple, githeri, which is maize and beans, cooked whole.
Maize is not only a common dish in most households in Kenya but it is also a familiar food across east, central and southern Africa, going by different names such as nshima, sima, sadza, mealie meal or posho. In fact Africa consumes 30% of maize produced in the world, research shows.
But it is not just maize that is often contaminated with the poisonous substance. In East Africa, maize, milk and groundnuts are the main sources of aflatoxin exposure. These are commonly mixed together to make a porridge for infants and children, putting them at particular risk of aflatoxin poisoning.
For Kenya, aflatoxin contamination is a long-standing problem. The country is considered a world hotspot, with incidents of acute toxicity recorded in 2004 and 2010…
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