Returning To Our Roots is a free cookbook created by the World Food Programme’s Caribbean Multi-Country Office.

It is an exploration of our food and how we prepare and eat it. It is part of an attempt to ” emphasizes the strategic importance of root crops in addressing the region’s food security, rural development, and public health goals.”

Real talk, the Caribbean is weighted down by the burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). Heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and various forms of cancers are overwhelming the health care system. According to a report from healthycaribbean.org NCDs are responsible for 75% of mortality and 73% of premature mortality. And with one in three children classified as obese, the region’s status as having the highest rates of NCD-related deaths in the Americas will persist.

Trinidad and Tobago has an abundance of foreign food in its groceries. The late Aggrey Brown said the Caribbean might be a most penetrated in the world when it comes to media. American ads and customs fill our heads to the point that people are unaware of the fruits in their backyard. A friend gave me a sapodilla two weeks ago and I have been obsessed. I haven’t had one in years. It can be difficult to fight the information that normalises the foreign foods and more needs to be done to counteract that indoctrination.

But living in the Caribbean means living with the consequences of our diet. The solutions aren’t unknown, but perhaps unactioned. We know that we have to adjust our diets, and this cookbook is one of the many little ways we can make a change for the better.

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