A ban of all unhealthy, non-organic food has been put in place in a group of South Pacific Islands.
Torba province, part of Vanuatu, announced the ban which has been implemented in the hope of steering locals and tourists towards a healthier future.
The island of Toba is home to around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom are subsistence farmers.
It is reported that the majority of healthy food comes in the form of imports from overseas, as the local produce is relatively healthy.
Community leader Father Luc Dini said:
“At the moment we have an infiltration of junk food from overseas,”
“It is easy to boil noodles or rice, but they have almost no nutritional value and there is no need to eat imported food when we have so much local food grown organically on our islands.”
The Guardian reports that he local area produces an abundance of fish, crabs, shellfish, taro, yams, paw paw and pineapple, meaning there is no real reason for food to be imported from overseas.
Many Islands in the South Pacific have developed a taste for western, processed foods. Dini says that some of the most popular imports include rice, sweets, tinned fish and biscuits.
He said:
“We are Vanuatu’s most isolated province and so far our health has stayed pretty good because of that, but we want to continue to be healthy,”
“In other provinces that have adopted western diets you see pretty young girls but when they smile they have rotten teeth, because the sugar has broken down their teeth. We don’t want that to happen here and we don’t want to develop the illnesses that come with a western junk food diet.”
Tourism bungalows which make up a lot of the areas tourism business have been told to serve only locally grown organic foods in order to better the healthy of visitors and the bungalow owners.
They hope that Torba will be Vanuatu’s first fully organic area by the year 2020.
Processed foods are fast becoming one of the most dangerous foods, not just for your health, but also for the environment. There really is little good you can say about processed foods, and wherever possible, to choose organic, locally grown food is always the best option.
Dini added:
“If you really want to live on a paradise of your own, then you should make do with what you have and try and live with nature,”
Via The Guardian
