Humanist

“The concept of Africans eating three meals a day, is post-colonial. In pre-colonial Africa, people ate whenever they were hungry. In one of the letters from the English to their missionaries in Congo, the sender spoke of how the negro mind had no proper perception of time and if they were going to get them to work properly, they must introduce a system that stamps time as something to be feared, revered, and calculated. One of the many ways they did this, was removing the access to meals and fixing it at different points of the sun.” Chief Ene on X @_Ojonya

This had me at the “people ate whenever they were hungry.”

A disclaimer, I am not sure it is factual or not. But still, it grabbed my attention.

It makes sense to me that we should eat when we are hungry and not be required to eat at a particular time and a particular food at that particular time. This is wisdom.

For example, as a child, I enjoyed many early lunches when our clansmen who ox-ploughed my tata’s (grandma’s) garden were served a delicious and wholesome meal by her, usually around 11:00 a.m.

That particular meal has a name, in fact, “atap na imogin” (millet ugali for bulls – the ox-plough teams). The quantity and quality of the meal fit the energy ‘the bulls’ had lost in their labor and which required replenishing.

You see, those days, it was tradition for ox-plough teams to go do the ploughing as early as 5:00 a.m., depending on the time of sunlight. Work until they completed the job or until about 10:30 a.m. when the sunrays are getting hot.

Those days, I am talking 1970s, it was not about cash payment, no. Clansmen ensured inclusivity and sustainable community development, by providing ploughing services to all fellow clansmen and clanswomen.

The owner of the gardens ploughed showed appreciation through preparing and serving the ox-plough team a delicious and sumptous meal. Usually mid-morning.

If the measure for food security prevalent current, at least three meals a day, is applied it would obviously categorize the men in Teso, my homeland, who are part of ox-plough teams of the 1970s food insecure.

Legend holds that such ox-plough teams often ate a lot and enough ‘millet ugali for the bulls’ to last them the rest of the day, without necessarily needing food. A

t most they would have only two meals a day, legend holds. But of course, presumably, in-between, if they felt hungry, they would eat whatever food is a available.

I dare assert that many smallholder faming households in rural Uganda are food secure, without consuming the recognized timed three meals a day.

Food for thought: Is the measure of three meals a day valid in the context of Ugnada?