A nutritionist, Mrs. Sarah Abagai, appealed to egg consumers to ensure that the produce is sufficiently cooked to avoid health complications
Okwe Obi, Abuja
As Nigeria celebrates World Egg Day, Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has disclosed that the country could generate over N3.4 billion from daily egg consumption if government could increase its support.
The 2018 event has the theme ‘Protein for Life: Enjoy Nutritious, Sustainable, Affordable Eggs At Every Stage,’ and it is celebrated every year in October across the world.
Its Director General, Onalle Akpa, who disclosed the economic value at a media parley in Abuja, added that Nigeria’s current per capita consumption of eggs is at 70%.
Akpa argued that, “The available indices indicate that of the one billion people that suffer from chronic hunger, 171 million of them under the age of five years (children) are chronically malnourished.
“The economy of the eggs in Nigeria is enormous as an egg a day for 50% the Nigerian population will produce a daily economic value of N1.7 billion. Annual revenue from egg sales will be N620,000,000,000. If per capita consumption of egg increases to 100 eggs per person per year, then annual revenue would be N340,000,000,000.”
Speaking from the health point of view, a nutritionist, Mrs. Sarah Abagai, appealed to egg consumers to ensure that the produce is sufficiently cooked to avoid health complications.
“The issue we should look at is that of salmonella infection which is common with eggs. It is a micro floral. On the process of poultry operation one could end up with such infection.
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“In the case of chicken and egg when they are stored and the storage facility is not sufficient in terms of temperature that is favourable for freezing properly. And you know the situation of light problem in Nigeria.
“When your power is restored it must have frozen already and a lot of microbial attacks would have taken place during the cooling stage. And the moment you refreeze, you will find out that the microbial load would have increased. And when that happens we encourage consumers of eggs and chicken to cook thoroughly before consumption,” she said.