Solution to cooking oil high price
MBABANE - Even before cooking oil was introduced, there was an African way of cooking without using this ingredient.
An elderly man says in the olden days, when people were quite nomadic, there was never any mention of the nomads moving around with cooking oil.
“Where was cooking oil when they moved from one place to the next?” was his exact question. Jabulani Msibi (80) of Mankayane made this comment after hearing various complaints about the high price of cooking oil in recent months.
Ingredients
He said there was no need to panic as there were other methods and ingredients that people could use to cook in substitute of cooking oil.
“I do not use cooking oil, I use peanuts, necrotic fat (umhlehlo) that is extracted from the cow’ stomach when it is slaughtered and let it hang from the roof to dry. Even if I want to fry an egg, I use that dried fat which melts and works the same way as cooking oil. I also preserve sheep and goat necrotic fat for later use,” he explained.
The elderly man said people only needed to adapt and find alternatives.
Substitute
“People can also use peanuts. Vegetable fat is beneficial to the body,” he said. He also added that the fat from mixed offal could also be used to substitute the cooking oil.
The elderly man also revealed that he was healthy from diseases associated with excessive intake of oil because of the types of oil that he was using in his diet. “Life is precious, it is paramount that we eat everything in the right amount,” Msibi said.
In a previous interview with this publication, Gugu Shabangu, who was the Acting Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, had revealed that it was not only motorists and
TABLE SHOWING TABLE COOKING OIL PRICE INCREASE:
UNIT (MILLILITRES) 500 ml
750 ml
1.5 litre
2 litre
PREVIOUS AVERAGE PRICE
E19.99
E25.99
E44.99
E59.99
CURRENT AVERAGE PRICE E29.99 E39.99 E65.99
E99.99
the business community that felt the pinch of the fuel price hikes but the public at large.
“The ordinary consumer who does not drive any vehicle is also affected as even the price of cooking oil is up,” she said.
“The average price of cooking oil has increased by over 60 per cent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia- Ukraine war has made the situation even worse,” Shabangu said. The two countries Russia and Ukraine are major players in edible oil seeds sunflower production and the processed edible oil.
The average price of cooking oil has increased by over 60 per cent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia- Ukraine war has made the situation even worse.