The Nutricious Kenyan Foods

Kenya has over 40 ethnic tribes living in different provinces of Kenya. Traditionally the various tribes had different staple foods and/ or prepared their food differently based on cultural practices

For the Kikuyus in Central province, food used to be mainly boiled and mashed. This is the home of githeri, a mixture of maize (corn) and beans boiled together and eaten as a complete meal. At times the mixture would be mashed with potatoes. Today the githeri is sometimes fried with onions, and tomatoes. The Kikuyus other staple food is “irio” which is cooked peas mashed with potatoes. There were other food products like yams, cassava and arrow roots which were also eaten after boiling. As you can tell the Kikuyus diet was very blunt and consequently obesity was unheard of.

In the Nyanza and Western side of Kenya we have the Luos and the Baluyas. Maize was the main thing which was grounded to make flour to make ugali. Ugali is a paste like gruel made from maize flour in boiling water. Ugali is normally eaten with green leafy vegetables or fish to make a complete meal. Since the Luos live near Lake Victoria, Fish was and is a common food element. Green leafy vegetables like collard green are popular in this region. Apart from Maize, the tribes in this region also use millet flour to make ugali or porridge.

Cooked Bananas is and was staple food to most tribes in Kenya. Those in Western Kenya roasted the bananas and ate them with stew or with porridge while others, particularly in Central and Eastern province boiled and mashed them. In the Coastal province, because of the influence of Arabs, there is a lot of use of spices. Cooking with coconut is also very popular. The main dishes are fish, plantains, and rice. Rice is cooked using coconut milk and other spices to a dish called “pilau”.

The pastoralist tribes like the Maasais and Turkanas traditionally fed mainly on meat. They kept and still keep goats and cows as possession and for food. Their main diet is goat meat as well as milk and blood from the animals.

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