If you are interested in protecting your health, you have to start with the environment, seeds, compost or manure and then keep toxic chemical away from your body. Most people know that, at least you would think. The reality couldn’t be more different. Amongst the Gìkùyù, whom I grew up around, everything revolved around food. In fact, there is a proverb that says that "Utonga nì matigari ma nda." That simply means that wealth is the excesses of the stomach. That is how I was raised and it is how I live to day. Another instructive proverb along the same line of thinking cautions one not to discuss important matters with a hungry person. "Ng'aragu ndìhoyagwo ùhoro", the proverb says. I extrapolate that to mean that it is not wise to teach a hungry person. Let's start by taking care of the central business before venturing out to other things. Fela Kuti used to sing that Africa is the center of the world. Your stomach is your center and right in front of your eyes. We can't pretend not to see it, at least without serious consequences. If you think choices have consequences, choose to ignore food at your own risk. My friend Andrew Nganga, recently explained the drastic changes amongst the above group that perfectly exemplies imperialism in our thinking and by extention in our plates. Nganga's observation is that nowadays food is what remains after one becomes wealthy. What else would anyone need as evidence of our food illiteracy.?
One can phrase the story differently for the interest of brevity. If Karl Marx that under capitalism wages tend towards subsistance, the food illiteracy is the culture of subsistance. Empires are truly vampires of culture.