Ghanaians eating fewer eggs - Poultry farmers

The Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers has expressed worry over what it says is the increasing decline in the consumption of eggs in the country.

Vice Chairman of the Association, Napoleon Oduro, said the situation was collapsing the poultry business and called for concerted efforts to deal with it.

Speaking at a forum at the Erata Hotel in Accra on Wednesday April 20, Mr Oduro blamed the trend on the misconception that eggs contained excessive cholesterol.

“Egg is seen as a super food because it contains almost all the nutrients that the body requires for sustenance,” he stated. “Unfortunately, there is a myth surrounding [the] egg which has prevented many people from eating it. A recent research at the University of Georgia, USA on eggs has cleared the myth of cholesterol and the current update has indicated that cholesterol in egg is not considered a nutrient of concern for over consumption.”

As part of attempts to whip up interest in the consumption of eggs, the farmers intend using children as advocates.

Mr Oduro said: “Children are one of the best pressure groups in the world because when a child tells mama that: ‘My teacher says I should eat an egg a day and it will make me intelligent’, who are you, mama, to be giving the child fish or meat?”

“If on the average we are able to convince somebody that: ‘Eat two eggs in a week’, [then] we are getting about 104 [consumed per person] a year.”

According to a nutrition website, eggs are a very good source of inexpensive, high quality protein. More than half the protein of an egg is found in the egg white, along with vitamin B2 and lower amounts of fat and cholesterol than the yolk. The whites are rich sources of selenium, vitamin D, B6, B12, and minerals such as zinc, iron, and copper.