Lagos — One of the fastest growing businesses in the country today is the fast food industry. Fast food restaurants are springing up at every street corner in highbrow and down town areas of urban and semi-urban areas. This is no doubt an indication of business boom in this sector of the economy, with its unquantifiable multiplier effects on the socio-economic development of the country. No matter how infinitesimal, the employment generated by these outfits is hard to overlook.

With this comes the unmistakable fast food culture that is fast evolving among the various segments of the Nigerian society, especially the youths, members of the middle class and the nouveaux riche.

The fact that fast food is convenient, readily available, quickly served and could be taken on the go, makes it the choice of these groups of people who, because of the demands of their jobs, are often in a hurry. To such people, fast food joints have become their saving grace from the drudgery and boring routine of going to the kitchen to prepare their own meals or wasting unduly long hours on shopping for foodstuffs.

But then, that is one of the potent dangers in getting hooked on this rising fast food culture: gradual erosion of an integral part of the country's culture, our unique ways of preparing meals with local flavour-enhancing spices. The fast food, which is essentially an alien cuisine, is undermining the growth of this vital aspect of our culture. So bad is this problem that some high-profile marriages have collapsed as a result of the inability of some wives to give their spouses the tasty traditional African meals.

Apart from the cultural aspect, nutritionists believe that home-cooked meals are likely to be fresher and more friendly to the body system than the often over-seasoned, over-spiced and over-refrigerated fast food that contains too much fat, salt and chemical additives. Even the condition in which some of the fast food are prepared leaves much to be desired.

However, these negative nutritional attributes and the danger they may pose to health are often overlooked by most youths and middle class members of the society, who wrongly view the emerging fast food culture as a status symbol. This often results in food abuse that could cause various diseases like cancer and lead to obesity.

We are not calling for a clampdown on fast food operators because of its economic benefits. Moreover, a good number of them are making conscious efforts to serve African cuisine. However, the health of consumers should be a paramount consideration by the fast food operators. In this regard, we believe that blending some of the foreign content in their recipe with the best of our traditional African cuisine and reducing the cholesterol level of their snacks would promote their consumer-friendliness.

Even as widely accepted as the fast food culture is in the United States of America, conscious effort is still being made to discourage people from over-dependence on junk food due to the danger it poses to health. For instance, it is reported that in California, tax has been imposed on fast food to reduce its consumption and prevent the tendency towards obesity among the populace.

During her tenure as the Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Dora Akunyili did a good job in sensitizing Nigerians to the dangers of indiscriminate consumption of fast food and the need to embrace Nigeria's traditional cuisine. This is a remarkably great effort at helping the people to help themselves. It should be sustained.