Around May this year, there was a feud that blew up in Nigeria between a retail seller and a bread factory owner.
Apparently, the retail seller made a video to raise awareness about the kinds of food products being produced and sold in the country these days. She used bread as a case study, pointing out that bread is generally expected to have a relatively short shelf life, especially when it isn’t loaded with preservatives.
Her concern was when bread stays unusually fresh for far longer than expected, shouldn’t we be asking questions about what exactly is keeping it that way?
I found the video genuinely educational because I learned things I had never really thought about before.
What I found interesting was how carefully she handled the situation. She didn’t mention the brand’s name, and she made sure the brand wasn’t visible in the video she made. It just seemed like a deliberate attempt to educate people without unnecessarily exposing or defaming a particular company.
But, the internet had other plans and the video blew tf up. Millions of people wanted to know the name of the brand she was talking about. Apparently concerned that people would eventually figure it out, the company reached out to her and demanded that she take the video down, threatening legal action if she didn’t. But, she refused.
A few days later, she received a letter from the company’s lawyer. She then came online to talk about the letter, and that was how the brand eventually became known to the public. And, of course, people started investigating.
Some people stopped buying the bread altogether. Others started looking for alternatives. Some even began baking their own bread at home. I was one of those people who decided to stop buying bread entirely. Well, until I craved it badly enough to change my mind.
I bought a loaf last week. Not the brand involved in that whole controversy though. Still, I decided to conduct my own little experiment because I hadn’t forgotten. I ate a few slices and kept the rest.
Today, as I’m writing this, the remaining bread is still sitting there looking perfectly fine. There’s no visible mould or obvious change in appearance. Nothing that suggests it has gone bad. And to be honest, I’m scared. Because if bread that is supposed to spoil within a relatively short period can remain fresh for this long, what exactly am I consuming? Have I been eating foods containing preservatives or other additives without really knowing what is in them? And if so, what effect could prolonged consumption have on my health? I genuinely hope none.
What makes this even more disturbing is the growing distrust people have towards food regulation over here. There are constant conversations about whether regulatory bodies such as NAFDAC are doing enough to ensure that the foods being sold to Nigerians are properly tested and safe for consumption. And this is where the issue becomes bigger than one loaf of bread.
We are talking about people’s health. Food isn’t something we should have to investigate ourselves before deciding whether it is safe to eat. Consumers shouldn’t have to become amateur scientists, conducting shelf-life experiments in their kitchens because they don’t know whether they can trust the products on supermarket shelves.
Companies are in business to make money, that’s pretty understandable. But when profit begins to take priority over the safety of the people consuming those products, we have a serious problem. I don’t think asking questions about the food we eat should be considered an attack on businesses. It is basically a matter of wanting to know what exactly we are putting into our bodies.
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