Do you cook in Lagos?
By: Dr. Fox
Tags: Vegan, Healthy Eating, Foodies, Going Green, Lagos

Recently, I have been on journey sorts with foods in Nigeria.

In the past two years, I have visited food markets in Lagos which I had only heard of previously in the public news reporting channels.

Markets like Oyingbo, Bariga, Ikosi, Ejigbo, Iddo, Sabo, Oshodi, and many others are a good place to source for cooking items. Some of these markets are situated along my daily commute; while my discovery of others was the result of getting to meet new people who shared my preferences.

But most of these markets have existed for a very long time; such that it leaves you wondering why many are not a common choice for working city dwellers looking to get fresh food products.

A video survey I watched a year ago showed many people complained of the stress, and possibility of losing handy valuables when they visited these markets. I can relate with some of this as I have been “privileged” to experience some of the Lagos market stress.

However, most of these markets have been improved upon in recent years by the government, with some being provisioned with clean conveniences, and car parks.

While some are still not easy to navigate, you can rest assured that you will find almost anything your palate desires in these markets.

I have the habit of cooking my food fresh always, and that requires sourcing fresh vegetables and food items weekly - from shoko leaves to sweet potatoes, there’s always a market with fresh food.

But the markets are not alone nowadays in the fresh food business. We now have a good number of supermarkets and malls springing up in many parts of Lagos with quite the level of success you would not have expected.

You most likely would have heard about the Palms shopping mall, or the Shoprite chain of stores in several states in Nigeria. Better yet you must have visited one or more of these modern shopping malls and seen for yourself the splendid shopping facade.

Some of these malls now sell fresh food produce and I was glad when I could buy some okra, watermelons, and cucumbers at Spar. This should be expected and I encourage more of this.

During the month of December in 2019, I was on my regular visit to one of the shopping malls in search of palm oil. My experience with palm oil in Lagos has shown me that you can never believe what a seller tells you about a product that they do not manufacture themselves.

Buying palm oil along *Abeokuta - Ore* expressway seems like the way to go but most of us don’t travel that route frequently enough to get that opportunity.

The shelf life of palm oil in a room at 30 degrees Celsius is between six months and 3 years, depending on how you store and use it.

At this time I had tried one brand of palm oil and was getting confident in the quality of their product and was on the look out to restock my supply.

However, every store I visited during the festive season had the same stock of that palm oil that was manufactured in February 2018 and expiring February 2020. As I was looking to restock a large jar, I knew it would take more than one month to consume this and I would still be eating this product months after it had past its shelf life.

Fast forward to January 2020 my stock had run out, and I was sure that there would be new stock in the market from my trusted palm oil brand.

And there it was sitting on the mall shelf looking all new and fresh. But something was different, this was not a new stock.

All the products somehow had received a new lease of life; They were still produced in February 2018, but they were now set to expire in February 2022!

I cannot for one say what might have changed in the content in the previous batch that had a two year shelf life, and this new one with the four years shelf life.

At this point I had to recalibrate my decision about this brand and all the products sold in the malls.

I am not a diviner but I may freely surmise that the dates on this product may change again from Feb 2018 - Feb 2020, to Feb 2020 - Feb 2022.