DELICIOUS food means pleasing appeal in the presentation of any dish, but people’s idiosyncrasies regarding certain types of food can be costly and misleading.

Consumers prefer reddish or brightly colored foods. Most food labels are red, green or yellow, even if the contents are white, gray or dark colored. The aesthetic aspect is important for the desire of the products.

Many food establishments use dyes like carbon monoxide, lycopene, etc. on meat like beef to give it a bright red appearance. Beef appears brown when not exposed to oxygen, but turns red when exposed to oxygen due to a protein in meat called myoglobin, which binds to oxygen and changes the color of the meat. Pork undergoes a similar process of dying to enhance its appearance to attract consumers.

Food coloring is as old as food itself, but the coloring of yesteryear was not made in a laboratory and came from nature, such as annuto, cranberry juice, turmeric. , etc., all of which have good antioxidant properties and provide recommended health benefits. the user.

The face of food is evident in other types of foods like milk and eggs. Recently, an American documentary wrongly revealed that consumers of chocolate milk believe that the drink comes from brown cows, but that the milk of the hypotimus is pink although the animal is blackish in color, while the milk of Holstein cows are lily white even though the milk is black in color. the cows are black and white

The problem is that most cattle feeds don’t have the same color as milk, and neither do their meats.

Chocolate milk from brown cows is not a far-fetched hypothesis given that brown eggs come from reddish layers (Rhode Island hens) while white eggs come from white layers (horn leg).

Jamaican consumers prefer brown eggs over white eggs, although there is no nutritional difference between the two types.

It is, however, more economical and profitable to produce white eggs because birds produce a dozen eggs from 3.5 to 4 pounds of food while reddish hens produce the same dozen eggs from 4 to 5 pounds of food . Animal feed is the largest input contributing to the costs of laying hen operations, accounting for 75 percent.

Additionally, the laying time of a white bird is much longer than that of a reddish hen, making restocking red hens more frequent and more expensive.

The poultry industry uses approximately US$140 million worth of feed per year, although most imported poultry inputs are attributed to the broiler sector, as the layer farm manages approximately one million birds, compared to around 50 million meat birds per year, from which the meat is produced. production is 136 million kilograms per year.

Given the high cost of poultry and animal feed imports, in an economy facing a shortage of foreign exchange, government agencies such as the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) and the Industry Development Board Jamaica Dairy Corporation (JDDB) must implement an aggressive public education program to encourage a preference for white eggs due to economic factors, since the nutritional value of white and brown eggs is the same.

Also, like sausages and hamburgers.

The face of food is changing, moving from genetically modified foods to laboratory-grown foods, and the consuming public needs to be better informed in order to make healthy and economical choices.

The face of food is as relevant to crop types as it is to meats and eggs. There is a clear preference for yellow yam over other yams like Negro, Lucy, tau and soft yams. These yams have the same nutritional status as suppliers of carbohydrates (starch), in the same way that rice, flour and cornmeal provide carbohydrates, but are imported, endangering the macroeconomic infrastructure by using scarce foreign currency to procure these items.

The color of sweet potatoes is also important to consumers. The yellow-fleshed variety is more attractive and more expensive than white-fleshed potatoes, but its nutritional values ​​are similar as a carbohydrate supplier.

In fact, all starches are used by the body in the form of glucose molecules.

Once again, consumers should “Grow what we eat and eat what we grow.” This would promote self-sufficiency and encourage import substitution.

Consumer education is essential to influence their behavior and autonomy regarding food security and sovereignty.

Lenworth Fulton is a past president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society.