Let me start by applauding the Federal Government’s ‘One Meal A Day’ programme for pupils. This programme featured prominently during APC’s election campaign and it is good to know that the government intends to honour that promise.

Providing meals for pupils puts Nigeria in the same league with industrialised countries that have identified social welfare as a necessary tool for economic development.

However, the recent MOU signed by the FG with NASCO to feed 30 million pupils special biscuits is a very bad idea from a nutritional point of view.

Large scale social welfare is uncharted territory for the FG so they can be excused if they do not get it right the first time. This is the time for them to return to the drawing board and come up with better alternatives.

Senator Ben Bruce has rightly pointed out that prioritising feeding pupils biscuits over paying teachers salary is not the way to improve the standard of education in Nigeria.

This write-up is looking at the decision from a nutritional point of view.

Firstly, will parents be provided with the nutritional information on what their children are eating?

Secondly, how many healthcare professionals like doctors and dieticians were consulted before this MOU was signed?

According to the Minister of Science and Technology, Mr. Ogbonnaya Onu, who represented the government at the signing ceremony in Abuja, the MoU was necessary in order to advance the implementation process of government desire to enhance a healthy development of children through the programme.

The minister said further that the high nutrient density biscuits were one of the products of Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO), Lagos, which would meet at least one- third recommended dietary allowance of Pupils. One-third, what about the remaining two-thirds? There are other alternatives like fruits and vegetable that will provide more than half of the children’s recommended dietary allowance.

The government’s desire to enhance a healthy development of children through the programme should be questioned if feeding children biscuits is the best idea they can come up with.

Let us have a look at what biscuit contains and the nutritional value of these substances:

Sugar: This is one of the most important ingredients in biscuit. Sugar will damage children’s teeth and that is just the beginning. Excessive consumption of sugar also leads to the development of Diabetes type 2 and other obesity related illnesses like cancer, high blood pressure and hypertension later in life. Some of these pupils may have undiagnosed Diabetes type 1, which is more serious than Diabetes type 1, and consuming biscuits every day will worsen the situation. The other alternative to sugar is aspartame and nutritionally it’s even worse than sugar.

Hydrogenated oils: They may seem harmless enough, but these hydrogenated oils mean that they contain the most dangerous kind of fats- Trans fat. Trans fat is known to increase bad cholesterol and decrease good cholesterol. They also increase chances of diabetes and heart disease later in life.

Wheat Flour: the wheat flour biscuit is made of is generally refined wheat flour. Eating refined wheat flour is not `recommended because during processing, the brown cover of the wheat is removed that contains essential vitamins and also the necessary fiber that supplements the process of digestion and supports weight loss.

Biscuit is also high in calories and falls under the category of foods with high GI (Glycaemic Index), which means children feel full immediately after eating it due to the rapid release of energy but less than an hour later they’re hungry again because they have used up all the energy from the biscuit.

Biscuit is also not a good source of fibre and children need fibre. Even with the fiber that is added in the biscuits, that content is much lower than the daily requirement for fiber.

Instead of feeding children with biscuits the FG should invest in agriculture by encouraging farmers to grow fruits and vegetable to feed these children with. This will not only be a source of income for these local farmers but will also provide the children with better nutrition.


- See more at: http://www.urnaija.com/attn-nigerian-parents-fgs-plan-feed-children-nasco-biscuits-dangerous-idea-nutritionally/#sthash.DPH2YYv1.dpuf

Fud na fud

Buhari WANTS TO 'OSUN' THIS COUNTRY AGAIN??

Chairman, fud no be fud o! Especially if una get pikin.

SHEEGO2015:
Fud na fud

story story story. so they should ban biscuit in nigeria, since all you mentioned are general ingredients of biscuit

no sane human being will support feeding school pupils with biscuits

No, they shouldn't ban biscuits but the Federal Government should not embark on a program to feed children with it everyday. Biscuits should only be eaten in moderation. It's like planning to give pupils cocacola to drink everyday.

Elosky20:
story story story. so they should ban biscuit in nigeria, since all you mentioned are general ingredients of biscuit

Y nt bobo

maryam6:
Y nt bobo

Nutritionally, eating biscuits everyday is bad for children

A farmer and his wife ride a donkey to the market
People say they want to kill the donkey with weight
Farmer comes down, leaves wife on the donkey
People say the wife no get respect for her husband
Wife comes down farmer climbs on donkey
People say farmer is not a gentle man, suffering his wife
Both come down and walk beside donkey
People call them MUMU, how can u have a donkey and not ride it.

urnaijadotcom:
No, they shouldn't ban biscuits but the Federal Government should not embark on a program to feed children with it everyday. Biscuits should only be eaten in moderation. It's like planning to give pupils cocacola to drink everyday.

You have no point. Don't most parents give their children biscuits to school or money to buy biscuits. Apart from some children in rural areas, all children eat biscuits everyday.

This is what we call white elephant project . Why can't the government reason like leaders, most schools don't have necessary equipment to learn which is the primary aim of going to classes, That money should be channel to provide free education to all primary. And secondary education.

urnaijadotcom:


Nutritionally, eating biscuits everyday is bad for children

Doesn't using nasco alone indicate that the buscuite that will be given to children could be different from just any buscuite? The MoU could include nasco producing buscuite with special nutrients like cassava and less sugar. Today we have a brand of coaster buscuite without sugar, eaten by diabetic patients.

Luckylife:
This is what we call white elephant project . Why can't the government reason like leaders, most schools don't have necessary equipment to learn which is the primary aim of going to classes, That money should be channel to provide free education to all primary. And secondary education.

Thank you Luckylife, exactly what Senator Ben Bruce was saying.

OrlandoOwoh:

Doesn't using nasco alone indicate that the buscuite that will be given to children could be different from just any buscuite? The MoU could include nasco producing buscuite with special nutrients like cassava and less sugar. Today we have a brand of coaster buscuite without sugar, eaten by diabetic patients.

Thanks for your contribution in this debate OrlandoOwoh. Point is, give children diabetic biscuit without sugar and they won't eat it. Waste of money. The most common alternative to sugar is aspartame, which is even more dangerous than sugar.

Most Nigerian children eat biscuits everyday, I did

urnaijadotcom:


Thanks for your contribution in this debate OrlandoOwoh. Point is, give children diabetic biscuit without sugar and they won't eat it. Waste of money. The most common alternative to sugar is aspartame, which is even more dangerous than sugar.

Why don't you call for the outright ban of the production and sale of buscuits? If consuming buscuits bought by children is safe, why should consuming same provided by government be seen as being bad?

@op improving infrastructure and teachers welfare is the state and local government responsibility which am sure the fg is also working on how to help them achieve that.
I believed more than 60% of Nigerian kids eat #10 biscuit or more daily, if not biscuit market go don close.
The FG is not planning for daily consumption of biscuit, schools open 5days a week, so the biscuit might just be for 3days at most.
The biscuit is as a result of scientific research and recommendation, so side effects must have been considered.
Thanks for the criticism, but fg must go on with the biscuit project if this is your only excuse.

urnaijadotcom:
No, they shouldn't ban biscuits but the Federal Government should not embark on a program to feed children with it everyday. Biscuits should only be eaten in moderation. It's like planning to give pupils cocacola to drink everyday.
soehgsco

you are a hypocrite! Everywhere,biscuit is smtin school children eat everyday in school..because buhari is the one giving it,you suddenly found smtin wrong in it

urnaijadotcom:


Nutritionally, eating biscuits everyday is bad for children

According to who? You and your fellow ignorants?

Do you people even know the meaning of fortified biscuit? It means biscuits fortified with essential vitamins and nutrients which they benefit from nutritionally than what they eat at home.

We've been eating worse stuff with no essential benefits than biscuit like eba, amala, akpu and rice 3 times a day for generations and you people are crying over what was designed to benefit children?

If you don't want the biscuit for your children, then don't let them eat it and let other kids needing the benefits gain from it.


Sad enough that the unintelligent twitter senator whose children are in america eating the best food in the world also who with his PDP gang who denied our kids better education and nutrition fighting kids over biscuits, but you the sad by products of the same atrocities perpetrated by the same clowns like this idiotic twitter clown whose children received the best education in America are supporting this hypocritical clown his political stupidity.


The silly twitter clown need to get off twitter and go see shameful and disgracing issues school children in his own constituency are facing..

There is no way that this government will provide the kids only biscuits. The remaining two-third must be other varieties of food.

The OP should note that the main objective of the feeding programme is to make going to school more attractive for the poor, who might prefer to use their children/dependents of school age as cheap labour. In order words the plan is to raise the literacy level in quantitative terms.

Another objective is to improve productive capacity of the nations food processing capacity and create employment.

Quality of education is being addressed with the proposed recruitment of 500k teachers.

Any argument that seeks to ridicule this objective is malicious in my view given our low literacy level especially in th North. Your views on the nutritional value of biscuits was helpful though not convincing.

Bread,butter with a glass of milk would have been better

But then nigeria and corruption. Many firms awarded the contract would have failed to deliver.

Ralphlauren:
Bread,butter with a glass of milk would have been better

But then nigeria and corruption. Many firms awarded the contract would have failed to deliver.

Fortified biscuits have more nutritional and dietary benefits than what you listed many times over..

urnaijadotcom:

Instead of feeding children with biscuits the FG should invest in agriculture by encouraging farmers to grow fruits and vegetable to feed these children with. This will not only be a source of income for these local farmers but will also provide the children with better nutrition.

Your write up might* have been making sense up until this last paragraph. If this is not an investment in agriculture, then I don't know what is.
I don't believe in welfarism but this plan if properly** implemented would kill two birds with one stone.

Bird 1: Educating rural kids. If the plan is properly executed, it should increase enrolments in the rural areas thereby giving this kids a chance to learn how to read and write. Do not underestimate what the ability to read and write would help people in rural areas achieve.

Bird 2: Employment. I don't know what Nasco's revenue is like today but I am willing to bet that a 500 million increase in revenue will help the company expand and you know what that means in terms of employment. Also by giving the money to Nasco, you've solved a big problem in agriculture, the value chain. Nasco has the money to expand which means they'll need more raw materials for production and they'll turn to the farmers but if you give the money to the farmers they'll produce crops but if they don't have buyers then the crops would waste like it does currently.


PS: for those peddling the Ben Murray Bruce lie of using the money to improve teachers welfare, my question to you is will increasing the salaries of governors and political appointees stop them from stealing?


* I'm not a nutritionist hence the reason why I used the word might
** This is Nigeria, you can't guarantee that the project would be free from fraud.

Fortified biscuit assists in fighting malnutrition.

Source:
MRC NEWS. 1997 Aug; 28(3):1.
Abstract:

In South Africa, a collaboration project involving the Medical Research Centre's (MRC) National Research Program for Nutritional Intervention, a rural village, and a baking and milling group led to the development of a biscuit fortified with iron, iodine, and vitamin A.


The micronutrient-fortified biscuit was provided to 130 primary school students 6-11 years of age in Ndunakazi and their nutritional status, school attendance, and cognitive functions were monitored for 12 months. Another 130 children, who did not receive the biscuit, served as controls.


After 12 months, vitamin A deficiency declined from 40% at baseline to 12%, iodine deficiency dropped from 97% to 30%, and anemia decreased from 30% to 15% in the intervention group. Also recorded in the study group children with low iron and iodine status at baseline were significant gains in selected cognitive skills associated with successful school performance.

The impetus for the project came from community response to the deaths of 2 village children from malnutrition. Biscuits were selected for the nutrition program because of their low cost ($0.23/child/day), acceptability, and convenience. Essential to the success of this intervention were community participation and collaboration.

http://www.popline.org/node/271328#sthash.gyNfNgBX.dpuf

^^^^^^ That's kinds in South Africa benefiting from Fortified biscuits.. The get more nutritional and dietary benefits than what they eat at home..


The ignorant twitter agbaya quarrelling with little children over biscuits while his own children are living the good life in the USA need to STFU and worry about the poor kids in Bayelsa..

Socialist policies stifle creativity, engender indolence, and steadily ride an economy into financial abyss. Learn from Greece and Osun.

The reason why govment iz turning to fortified biscuits is that it is cost effective and requires very little effort compared to strenous eneryy preparing beans or rice daily

arresa:


Fortified biscuits have more nutritional and dietary benefits than what you listed many times over..

Bread can also be fortified.

I hope you know that.

Ralphlauren:
Bread can also be fortified.

I hope you know that.

Don't mind these DUBIOUS people o jare, bro.
Na when biscuit wey be SNACK turn to food
Only in APCshit propaganda land.



www.nairaland.com/attachments/3131247_cu55se7vaaaykzj_jpeg8d3b0e22c761643e651e5d09f82d1552

anonimi:


Don't mind these DUBIOUS people o jare, bro.
Na when biscuit wey be SNACK turn to food
Only in APCshit propaganda land.



www.nairaland.com/attachments/3131247_cu55se7vaaaykzj_jpeg8d3b0e22c761643e651e5d09f82d1552

Ehhhhh. Stop there.

I'm an APC fan and one of Buhari's biggest fans.

Biscuits is a good idea. I just feel that bread, butter and milk would have been a decent alternative.

arresa:
The ignorant twitter agbaya quarrelling with little children over biscuits while his own children are living the good life in the USA need to STFU and worry about the poor kids in Bayelsa..

You should save your sermon for your drug lord JagbaJantis master on Bourdillon, okay

topeorekoy:
Abibat Tinubu is the former Lagos State Governor Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, she recently graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

Dad, Mum and sister were all there to celebrate with her.


www.nairaland.com/attachments/1105092_t1_jpgbcc5667786d6bd1b25e7c4d8a42e8550



http://topeorekoya..com/2013/05/photos-bola-ahmed-tinubus-last-daughter.html

In just four years (1979-1983), Alhaji Lateef Jakande transformed Lagos state by reviving Awo's FREE education policy and extending it to secondary schools with even free textbooks. He ensured PUBLIC primary and secondary schools were available for all residents of the state, running multiple shifts as necessary while RECRUITING and training teachers by setting up LACOED and other Teacher Training Institutes!

In addition he established LASU, LTV, ferry services and started construction of the metro among other laudable achievements despite a shoe string budget from low crude oil price at the time. That metro project was cancelled by Buhari after his coup and locking up Jakande


[img]http://4.bp..com/-V0NhGHyjMG8/UWlggCCvKbI/AAAAAAAAAXA/8W0vlN0V5o8/s1600/jakande2.jpg[/img]


Many of the school blocks from over 30 years ago have not changed till today, absolutely no improvement


www.nairaland.com/attachments/1964370_sku2_jpege1ebe4de4329955b7ec99f84493ba009



www.nairaland.com/attachments/1964371_sku3_jpegc43fc3a60bbe93a19044cd6322b91898




In 16 years (1999-2015) the JagbaJantis crew has been ruining Lagos state education with only 2,000 public schools today out of a total 14,000 in the state. The 12,000 private schools are largely UNSUPERVISED and not monitored.

http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/main-square/84093-only-2-000-schools-belong-lagos-state-government.html


This ruinous record of the Thief'nubu cabal has been our lamentable lot despite:

- Annual budget increased over 10 times from N42 billion in 2000 to N489.69 billion in 2015. The state budget has been consistently above N450 billion since 2011.
- Annual IGR increased over 53 times from N7.2 billion in 1999 to N384.26 billion in 2013.

http://businessdayonline.com/2014/09/nbs-data-show-lagos-outperforms-13-other-states-in-igr/#.VR56mNzF82E


-World Bank $90 million education loan for which Fashola said no FoI in Lagos when requested how he spent the money on the 2,000 public schools. Understandably so



www.nairaland.com/attachments/1875047_img2014111800173_jpeg9b1c3e1b830058e00636bea988489243



How did we proud inheritors of Awo's sterling legacy allow ourselves to be enslaved by this cabal?
Why did we let our INDIVIDUAL selfishness and greed bring us so low that we are content with PRIVILEDGE crumbs from Bourdillon rather than our rights to COLLECTIVE well being?

Guy this one na special biscuits o, Buhari biscuit no be anyhow biscuits. If you follow chop nasco of those days you go know say biscuit pass biscuits. Though i agree with fruit too but i have you considered a situation where pupils are served rotten mangoes.