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Mineral water’s logo(s)...mountains all the way

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28.9.09

Noodle Brain generation

by Yemisi Ogbe

February 12, 2009 11:10PMT

Indomie is as familiar a word to the Nigerian toddler as 'water' or 'milk'. Is it a necessity to life and well-being? Some parents may argue that it is, because it is all that their children will eat. It is quick to prepare, economical at N50 per packet, and versatile.

It is a staple, with an egg, with mixed vegetables, in soup, fried, on its own suncooked, as a biscuit. Indomie advertisers have not got their act together, because it would be easy to claim that their noodles is the best selling Nigerian fast food ever, and it may be hard to prove otherwise.

Indomie is no longer just a brand name, it is a revolution. Ask the average 14 month old if she knows, or cares what the difference is between Indomie, Mimee, O, or Amoy They are all indomie as far as that level of discernment allows. It looks, twirls and tastes like Indomie, well then, it must be Indomie.

A pre-school teacher informed me that many Indomie eaters cannot even pronounce the word Indomie. Never mind! In Nigeria, Indomie is synonymous with the word noodles, sometimes synonymous with the word food. Indomie's PR has long being impeccable but it must have died and gone to heaven when it received a thumbs up from Dora Akinyuli.

Here is what Sulieman Adenekan in The Punch on the web on 16th of September 2008 quotes her as saying: In the 80s I used to think that indomie was for the children, now we all know that it is for everybody, because Indomie is a complete food, any food that has carbohydrate, protein, micro nutrient, vitamin, calcium all in one is a complete food.

I am able to say it authoritatively because we have cleaned indomie noodles, seasoning repeatedly and we are happy that since they started production they have been able to adapt their seasoning to our local taste, by using our local ingredients to produce it.

Indomie then is so revolutionary that Mrs. Akinyuli was willing to risk the integrity of her professional opinion to give it a reference. I would gladly eat it myself on the basis of such a glowing resume, but for the fact that ‘dissenters' in the West are increasingly urging that we pay more attention to the small print on the back of our food, especially so in the case of processed foods given to children.

Food and Drug Administrations in the West are being kept under unrelenting pressure from Medical researchers, both mainstream and alternative, investigating the reasons why with each passing year, cases of allergy induced Autism, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Attention Deficiency and Hyperactivity disorders and Neurological disorders (among other childhood diseases) are on the rise.

The blood-brain barrier, a metabolic or cellular structure in the central nervous system that restricts the access of chemical substances to the brain and nervous system has recently being proved to be more breachable in some children than others, and so proactive parents are being forced to weigh the advantages of fast foods loaded with preservatives and additives, against their children¹s health, and their cognitive development. Can Nigerians really afford to be so glib about what we give our children to eat?

By the way, Mrs. Akinyuli¹s ‘complete food' contains wheat flour, refined palm oil, iodized salt, sodium polyphosphate, sodium carbonate, potassium carbonate, guargum, tartazine CI 19140, antioxidant (TBHQ)

Which words do you recognise? Here is what the list really reads like: Sodium polyphosphate; a food preservative that the United States Food and Drug administration ‘generally recognises as safe'. It is also an ingredient in household cleaning products, industrial cleaning processes and the manufacture of ceramics. It will also be found in toilet, surface, and coffee urn cleaners. Polyphosphates can be irritating to skin and mucous membranes. Bicarbonates of potassium and sodium have been present in processed foods forever as acidity regulators, anti-caking agents, flavour enhancers, raising agents and fungicides. Bicarbonate of soda may be familiar to many people as an antacid, and it is ranked as having negligible toxicity.

It is undisputably a chemical substance, and also commonly used as a descaling agent, in glass manufacturing, and for cleaning silver. Guargum is a dietary fiber and therefore has some documented nutritional merits. You decide on its merits.

Tartrazine Cl19140 is a synthetic lemon yellow food dye also known as E102. It is said to ‘appear' to cause a long list of allergic and intolerance reactions including hyperactivity in children, obsessive compulsive disorder, clinical depression, itching, feelings of suffocation, sleep disorders, blurred vision and allergic reactions in asthmatics and those with aspirin intolerance E102 has been banned in Austria and Norway, and UK ministers responding to the British Food Agency advise on food colouring have agreed that Tartrazine as well as five other food dyes will be phased out of foods in the UK by 2009.

Betacarotene is an alternative food dye to E102, but manufacturers prefer E102 because it is cheaper. (TBHQ) is an antioxidant whose merits or demerits are still being argued. Last but not least is the almighty Monosodium Glutamate in the Indomie seasoning powder, not only present as itself; but hidden as Hydrolysed vegetable protein.

MSG is an amino acid added to food for the sole purpose of making it taste better. A proven excitoxin, MSG is increasingly being implicated in a long list of neurological disorders. More explicitly, it has been proven to damage brain neurons. The counter-argument is that the blood-brain barrier should block its access.

Guess how many parents know for sure that their child's blood-brain barrier is catching his daily MSG dosage? MSG also happens to be addictive. It might be the explanation for why your baby's first word is ‘Indomie'.