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Contact: Adhara King
Monday, September 22, 2008 – The Ministries of Health, Agriculture and Education are teaming up to promote healthy living through well balanced diets in an effort to curb the existing health problems plaguing the island. The initiative is being spear headed by Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Josiah Rambally, who says he would like to see Saint. Lucians take advantage of the vast amount of nutritious food indigenous to the country.
“So we are here to brainstorm how best together we can use our resources in producing the food that we need, so that we can promote good health. We are also involving the Ministry of Education, who will join us shortly,”said Dr. Rambally.
Dr. Rambally cited a report of the Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment linking fatty diets to the progress of cancer cells in the body.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Herbert Emmanuel says his ministry has joined the healthy living thrust as part of a food security plan for the island.
Emmanuel said, “With the Ministry of Education, Agriculture and Health, we believe we could make a substantial contribution to the health of this nation. We recognize that there are a number of foods that we can grow here which will be beneficial to the people of this country and many times we seem to go for the cheaper option of importing foods, but as a policy at the Ministry we have started looking at foods that we could grow in large abundance so that we could feed the nation and at the same time grow healthier foods. Both Emmanuel and Dr. Rambally agree that the trend of departing from natural foods in favour of fast, processed food has done evident damage to the status of health in Saint Lucia. |
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