A Voice from Nyamira: Traditional Foods, Modern Diseases, and the Fight for Community Health

When you visit rural communities in Nyamira County and ask families what they fed their children that day, the answer is often the same: juice drinks mixed with excessive water to make them last longer, bread to "fill them up," and sugary snacks from the local shop. The traditional foods that sustained previous generations have disappeared from many tables, replaced by processed foods marketed as modern and superior.

Hon. Jerusha Mongina Momanyi, Women Representative for Nyamira County, recently described a difficult month of community visits that shocked her: men in their mid 40s who look 67 years old, children taking juice drinks to school as their only meal, parents too busy brewing alcohol to prepare nutritious food, and chronic diseases spreading through families like wildfire.

The Health Crisis Hidden in Plain Sight

In community after community across Nyamira, the pattern repeats. Families believe they're providing for their children by buying processed foods: chapatis, white rice, bread, sugary drinks. These foods are seen as "better" than traditional options, a sign of progress and connection to urban life. But the health outcomes tell a different story.

Momanyi has witnessed entire households where husband and wife are both brewing alcohol for income, leaving no time to prepare healthy meals for children. She's seen young people giving their own children the same unhealthy foods they were raised on, perpetuating a cycle of malnutrition disguised as modern eating. And she's heard reports of substance abuse adding to the health burden in rural areas.

What Was Lost: Traditional Foods That Sustained Generations

Nyamira once had a food culture built on nutrient dense traditional foods that required minimal processing and no added sugar. These weren't luxury foods. They were what ordinary farming families ate daily and thrived on. Momanyi recalls these foods from her own childhood.

Amanyanbuari (sweet potatoes) were the foundation of midday meals. When people returned from working in the shamba (farm), sweet potatoes were ready, prepared well, and served with porridge that contained no added sugar. Families felt satisfied and energized.

Nduma (arrow roots) provided starchy sustenance and were easy to grow in Nyamira's climate. Boiled and served plain or mashed, these tubers filled stomachs and built strength without any processing or additives.

Maize and beans boiled together without oil provided complete protein and fiber. Children ate this simple combination and "became so hard," meaning strong and resilient. The preparation was straightforward: boil both together without adding anything, serve to children, and watch them grow healthy.

Risaga (pumpkin leaves), enderema (black nightshade), and chinsaga (spider plant) were indigenous vegetables that grew easily in home gardens. These leafy greens required no purchased inputs and provided essential vitamins and minerals that processed foods lack entirely. Women harvested them fresh and prepared them with minimal cooking, preserving their nutritional value.

Ebisabo (dried vegetables) represented food preservation wisdom. During harvest season, women dried excess vegetables to ensure nutrition during lean months. This practice provided year round access to vitamins without refrigeration or industrial processing.

Borit (fermented milk) served with wimbi (finger millet porridge) offered probiotics and sustained energy. No sugar was added; the natural fermentation provided flavor and nutrition while supporting digestive health.

These foods were affordable, locally grown, and prepared at home with ingredients families controlled. They required time and knowledge to prepare, but they built health rather than undermining it. More importantly, they represented food sovereignty and cultural identity passed down through generations.

The Modern Replacement: Processed Foods as Status Symbols

Today's reality looks different. Children receive tea with excessive sugar and mandazi (fried dough) and believe they've eaten well. Families serve white rice and chapatis as everyday foods, abandoning the whole grains and vegetables that grew in their own farms. Juice drinks (often just colored water with sugar and artificial flavoring) are given to children as meals.

The shift happened gradually, driven by several factors:

• Cultural messaging that positions processed foods as "superior" and traditional foods as "backwards"

• Time constraints as parents engage in income generating activities (including alcohol brewing) rather than food preparation

• Availability of cheap processed snacks in every local shop while traditional food preparation knowledge fades

• Status seeking where feeding children "modern" foods signals economic progress

Momanyi identifies the core issue: the adoption of Western culture that equates processed foods with superiority and progress. But that sense of superiority comes with a devastating health cost.

Home gardens that once grew risaga, enderema, and chinsaga now lie fallow or are converted to cash crops. Grandmothers who knew how to prepare ebisabo and recognize indigenous vegetables are passing away without teaching these skills to younger generations. The knowledge of which wild vegetables are edible and nutritious is disappearing along with the plants themselves.

The Health Consequences in Nyamira Households

Walk into homes across Nyamira County and you can "easily tell that this person is sick, is diabetic, their heart is not well." The chronic disease burden isn't abstract statistics. It's neighbors, relatives, and friends requiring lifelong medication they often cannot afford.

In the communities Momanyi visited, half the people have diabetes. Half. These are working age adults who should be in their productive years, providing for families and building livelihoods. Instead, they're managing chronic diseases that drain their resources and energy.

Children show visible signs of poor nutrition even when their stomachs are full of bread and sugary drinks. They lack the strength and resilience previous generations had. Young adults develop conditions typically seen in the elderly. Middle aged people age prematurely, losing their ability to work productively when their families need them most.

The connection between diet and disease is becoming clearer to communities, but the solutions remain out of reach for many families who face limited options and resources.

A Call for Legislative and Cultural Action

As Parliament considers comprehensive food regulation (mandatory warning labels, marketing restrictions, and fiscal measures to make unhealthy foods less accessible) Momanyi brings urgent community testimony to national debates.

Her message to fellow legislators is clear: Kenya needs laws that protect families from deceptive marketing, inform consumers about health risks, and create price incentives that make healthy choices easier than harmful ones. This isn't about restricting freedom. It's about ensuring every family has the information and options to feed their children well.

But legislation alone won't solve the problem. She also calls for cultural shift: a return to valuing traditional foods and preparation methods rather than viewing them as inferior to processed alternatives.

She challenges Kenyans to examine what has been lost in pursuit of Western culture and processed foods. The generation that embraced these changes is now visibly sick, providing living evidence of the cost of abandoning traditional foods.

What Nyamira Can Teach Kenya

The health crisis in Nyamira County mirrors patterns across rural Kenya, making it a microcosm of national challenges. But Nyamira also holds solutions in its traditional food knowledge and strong community structures.

Traditional food revival could happen through:

• School feeding programs that prioritize local whole foods like sweet potatoes, nduma, beans, maize, and indigenous vegetables (risaga, enderema, chinsaga) over bread and processed snacks

• Community health worker education on preparing traditional foods efficiently for time constrained families, including revival of ebisabo (dried vegetable) techniques

• Agricultural support for farmers growing traditional crops and maintaining home gardens with indigenous vegetables rather than only cash crops

• Cultural celebrations that honor traditional food knowledge and make it aspirational rather than outdated, connecting elders who hold this knowledge with youth who need to learn it

• Documentation projects that record traditional recipes, preservation techniques, and indigenous vegetable identification before this knowledge disappears entirely

Economic interventions could include:

• Subsidies for traditional food crops that make them price competitive with processed foods

• Market infrastructure connecting rural farmers directly to consumers seeking healthy options, including dedicated sections for indigenous vegetables

• Income diversification away from alcohol brewing toward enterprises that support family health, such as traditional food processing cooperatives

• Warning labels and pricing that make the true cost of processed foods visible before purchase

• Seed preservation programs that maintain access to traditional crop varieties adapted to Nyamira's climate and resistant to local pests

Leadership Grounded in Community Reality

Momanyi's advocacy for food regulation comes not from abstract policy analysis but from walking through Nyamira communities and witnessing health deterioration firsthand. She's seen 45 year olds who look 67. She's heard mothers explain why they give children juice drinks and sugary snacks as meals. She's watched families struggle as half their community develops diabetes.

This grounded perspective shapes her parliamentary work. Drawing on her background as a former teacher and her deep understanding of education and community development, she connects national policy to local implementation in ways that resonate with rural realities.

During the November 2025 consultation on healthy eating legislation, she made clear commitments about supporting comprehensive food regulation while also calling for cultural change that values traditional foods.

Her approach combines respect for traditional knowledge with recognition that modern food environments require modern regulatory responses. She doesn't romanticize the past or demonize all change. She asks how Kenya can preserve what worked while protecting communities from what harms them.

The Next Generation Depends on Today's Choices

Children in Nyamira today will become the adults of 2045. If current dietary patterns continue, they'll face chronic disease burdens that drain family resources, limit productivity, and shorten lives. But if Kenya acts now (through legislation, cultural revival, and economic support for healthy food systems) those same children could grow up strong, healthy, and able to build prosperous futures.

Momanyi's message to Kenyans extends beyond Nyamira. The way Kenyans are eating now will make people die very early. Some diseases are not yet fully understood, but increasingly the evidence points to diet as the underlying cause.

This is leadership that connects personal observation to legislative action, traditional wisdom to modern policy, and community health to national progress. As Kenya debates the pathway forward on food regulation, voices from counties like Nyamira remind Parliament that these aren't abstract policy questions. They're matters of life, death, and the future health of the nation.

The choice facing Kenya is clear: continue down a path where processed foods displace traditional diets and chronic diseases spread, or take bold action to protect communities, inform consumers, and make healthy eating the easier choice for every family from Nairobi to Nyamira.

About This Leader

Hon. Jerusha Mongina Momanyi is the Women Representative for Nyamira County, serving her second term in Kenya's National Assembly. First elected in 2017 and reelected in 2022, she brings a background in education, having served as a teacher for over two decades before entering politics. She previously served as Treasurer of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Nyamira Chapter and as a member of the Nyamira County Assembly Board. In Parliament, she serves on committees addressing health, education, and community welfare, bringing firsthand knowledge of rural challenges to national policy debates. This profile is based on testimony she provided during a parliamentary consultation on healthy eating legislation held in Nairobi on November 28, 2025.