Njathi Kabui is an internationally celebrated organic chef, food strategist, urban farmer and food activist. His philosophy on food justice is anchored in his belief that colonialism not only robbed people of their religion, education but also of their culinary culture. He links food activism to the quest to address salient issues in the food industry which have conspired to create a culture of poisoned foods through use of chemicals which have adversely affected a generation which now suffers from a litany of lifestyle diseases.
Chef Kabui is both philosophical and practical as he has set up three food literacy and sustainable centers in Kenya in a bid to transform the false narrative perpetrated by the Food Industry. His mission is for every citizen to eat well and be healthy. He intimates that, “You are what you eat, in body, mind and spirit.” A healthy citizenry is therefore equivalent to a healthy nation.
In this interview by Dr. Nyambura, Chef. Kabui elucidates the essence of Food Justice and on his mission to empower people on the benefits of organic foods.
Good morning Chef. Kabui, your morning seems to have started early.
Good morning, Yes, I am an early riser. I like spending some time tending to my garden here because as you know I advocate for people growing what they eat.
Yes, Chef., I have been to your website, www.chefkabui.com, and have realized that you are an ardent advocate for Food Justice.
Thank you for this opportunity you have granted our readers, to know more about you and your quest for Food justice.
Could we start by you sharing with us who Chef. Kabui is?
Asante sana. I am happy to share with the readers of Ukombozi Review my story, which is actually a story of liberation from what I call the colonialism of the stomach, whereby the African easily adopted foreign chemically grown foods and neglected their own indigenous foods which were grown organically.
I was born in Murang’a County, in the modern day village of Mathioya. Like was the case in most families in the 1960s, we were a large household which depended on subsistence farming, though my father worked in Nairobi and would usually travel home whenever he could.
Before I started basic education, I travelled to Kisumu with my older brother and this exposure had a big impact on me.
In 1974, I returned home and started my first grade at Njumbi primary school. It was interesting because two of my siblings were in this school as pupils, while our oldest sister was teaching at the school as an untrained teacher.
However, my initial experience at this school was not as pleasant to me as it was for my siblings, because I had a run-in with a teacher who punished me for asking him a question that challenged him.
I have always felt this was the starting point in my pursuit for justice. His reaction towards me, made me revolt against school, and it took me a transfer to Nairobi where my dad worked. Repeating several classes and intervention of my father’s friend who proposed tuition by Mrs. Gachie for me to change my attitude towards school triggered improvement in my academic performance. I therefore ended up spending ten years of my life in the village and ten years in Nairobi, save for the brief stay in Kisumu. Those three places and the U.S are responsible for the three legs of my philosophy on food.
Chef. Kabui, this story resonates with most of us, whose liking for school came in later years. Please continue…
Hahaha, that is true.
My family was relieved when I was called to Eastleigh High school which was a government school with only Ksh 450 as school fees. During my years in this school, I became very much interested in education and was motivated to get the best education. Some of my peers were looking for graduate opportunities in India, which was cheaper, but I was self-driven to go for the best, and in mind those years, America offered a good scholarship.
After high school, my family fundraised, and after a whole year of preparation, I left Kenya to start my university Education. I was interested in Political Science and philosophy, then I undertook Medical Anthropology at graduate school level. Instead of pursuing my PhD, I decided to do my own independent study for three years in African Consciousness as a field of study. It was essentially a study of myself as a corrupted creature due to three of the experiences of the injustice of colonialism, slavery and neocolonialism. I later attended a Culinary School.
When I retrospect I see that all these three disciplines have shaped me today, because as a Chef, I am able to understand food cultures through anthropology and to read its politics through my first degree in Political Science.
Living far from home and in a continent where the struggles for Black freedom has been rife, developed in me the urge for black consciousness and I interacted a lot with Black Liberation Literature, especially Malcom X, whose ideologies I still subscribe to today.
After Culinary School, I proposed to create my own style of culinary which would integrate a wide range of organic foods with Afro-fusion music thus creating a brand which I called, “Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine.”
Chef. Kabui, you seem to have come full circle through your studies, your profession, and the mission you seem to pursue so passionately today.
Most of us have only, in recent years, started hearing about Food Justice and Food Activism. How would you give meaning to these concepts?
That is a correct observation, today I am living my purpose, which is to ensure the growing consciousness of the politics involved in the food industry and how most of what we eat is increasingly unhealthy.
Food justice is a concept which has emerged in recent years through the consciousness and sensitization of how food is used as a political weapon. It is a serious and deep understanding that any struggle for justice has to start with food due to its centrality to life.
Do you realize that food is the most subtle tool of oppression? Anyone who controls the food industry can colonize and oppress the people by controlling the quality, quantity of food available and to whom. Such control has serious implications about who thrives in that society and who doesn’t. As most people will say, ‘Bora Uhai.’
However, what we neglect thinking about is, besides the immediate satisfaction and gratification of a full stomach, what are the long term repercussions if what we consume has toxic chemicals that are hazardous to our environment and our bodies?
Food activists advocate for transparency in the food ecosystem, because it is shrouded with capitalistic tendencies which are out for profit rather than a healthy organic citizenry.
You will realize that importation of toxic chemicals such as Roundup still happens and foods grown using this chemical are still imported/exported and consumed by citizens . There are also who often do not either have a choice or knowledge about the consequences of consuming Roundup. Unfortunately, there is a lot of corruption involved in food, and that is why you hear of cases where maize with aflatoxin has been imported and is being traded in the market, or even the case of imported sugar which is not fit for human consumption that been packaged and is being sold from the supermarkets.
Indeed, it is very worrying when we hear this news, and often only when the media shares it do the citizens get to know.
That is true, but have you wondered what else in the food industry is traded illegally without media expose’. Why has it failed to capture the eye of the media, when the government has structures to check on this? Are there no regulations to ensure and guarantee that the consumer gets a good product?
This is where Food activism becomes critical, we push to ensure that there is good governance on matters.
My work as a Chef has been to raise awareness of how food is used as a sophisticated weapon. The people’s consciousness has been falsified to believe that foreign eateries have better food, yet we do not ask what for instance the chicken at eateries such as KFC or Burger King is fed on, we easily avoid buying our kienyeji chicken which we have more control over and the consumption of which creates multiplier effects on the economy. We have to question the roots of our rationale of thinking that it’s more sophisticated classier to eat the foreign chicken.
When we see a whole generation suffering from lifestyle diseases, then attention is drawn to the long-term consequences of eating foods that have been genetically modified.
Let me sum up this by saying that as Kenyans our struggles should be viewed as multi-pronged, yes, there are political, the human rights, and it is time we also clearly had our struggles on the food industry clearly defined so that all our foods can be censored effectively.
Thank you, Chef, for enabling us to see the inter-connections and the politics in the Food industry.
You have mentioned the foreign influences on the food industry, could you please shed some more light on this?
Oh Yes, I will still use the example of the foreign eateries which have set base in Kenya. Do you not realize that these multinationals are using food to sabotage our economic development because they are gaining access to our markets while the local Kenyan farmer does not have access to the foreign markets? Besides, because of the size and these mega corporations and their big governments that back them, they are skewing the local food market in their own favor but against the small local farmers. One might think that the local farmers export produce to other parts of the world but most of the exports that the local farmers send to the west is of unprocessed and unbranded farm products. Such arrangements put our local farmers at a great disadvantage. There is no wonder that whenever there are any emergencies, the farmers have no cushion and have to result in asking for aid from the same countries that rig our markets. Ask yourself, who assists those countries during their emergencies? Why can’t we also be stable enough to handle our own emergencies ourselves? But we can’t ask others to think about our own best interests when we are contributing to the problem at hand.
Think of this, you take your family to any of these eateries, instead of rearing chicken yourself, or buying it from a local provider. Your choice inadvertently locks out that provider from the market, this means the whole process from chick to plate.
In other words by choosing foreign, it means that all those involved in this particular food chain are now without customers, and there is no multiplier effect because they have no money to inject back into the economy
There is also, what I would call a tertiary connection, when we consume foreign food, which is genetically modified, we trigger a health burden on the local community, you have witnessed many people today are suffering from lifestyle diseases. The Government then has to spend much more on its sick citizenry.
Do you see this, when you choose to eat foreign foods whose origin you do not know, when in the short or long term you begin to suffer health issues, and probably the government has a limit to support you through NHIF, are you able to continue footing your bills? Would it not be wiser for you to be keen on the trail of your food so that poison is not served on your plate?
Indeed, it now all makes sense why amongst our other struggles, food activism is also most critical, more so when we now consider the disease burden due to lifestyle diseases.
Chef, we are now experiencing the Covid 19 pandemic which has been an eye opener on matters food security. Could you speak into this, as you also draw our attention on what we should ensure we learn from this Covid experience?
I am sorry to say this, but I cry when Kenyans laugh and when they cry I smile. I know this is shocking but over the years I have come to appreciate that it is when things go bad that we have the greatest chance of making a change. In fact, the pandemic vindicated people who had been saying we need to look at what we eat, now hospitals are full, and most of those who are suffering a greater effect of Covid are those who suffer from lifestyle-related diseases. Imagine, if only they had saved this crisis by eating healthy? Perhaps this pandemic burden would not have been so severe. Furthermore, people without control of their appetites, economic levers, markets and food are less likely to deal with both small or big emergencies. The fact that all other continents can produce vaccines for their populations and exports is another vivid example that illustrates the connections between our food and our fate in life.
My thinking is that Covid should be a wake-up call. We should tell ourselves that we actually do not need more difficult experiences to prompt us to undertake drastic changes in our lives.
My Philosophy Professor, Dr. Ruben Green, used to remind us that people change because of inspiration, and then they change because of desperation.
This pandemic should teach us about the value of food security and sustainable healthy food, on all levels. If we were previously depending on the US for instance on food supply, well, we have experienced a situation where there is a lockdown, if we didn’t have sufficient food, would we not be suffering a food crisis?
I find that even the educated have very scanty information on food and even when evidence is presented they don’t take it seriously or they don’t understand it.
I keep saying that you can live a frugal life if you retire but the bad thing about eating bad food is you damage yourself and others. You therefore end up depleting your savings because all that goes into meds, which are inadvertently bad for the environment, which then affects the health of others etc. Is it not better therefore for citizens to support food activists, so that they can push the government for better policies and regulations which are keen on consumer rights rather than profits?
Breaking the toxic circle in the food chain should be a matter of individual and also national interest if we are to win this war against the perpetrators of poisoned foods in our plates. We have to be conscious of the link between food, oppression and power which I have tried to expose in my advocacy, even gaining recognition from AAA (American Anthrolopogical Association). Good “eatership” results in good leadership. Whether you are a leader in your own home or in society, when you make the right choices on what you eat, there is a trickle-down effect to the people you lead.
As we conclude, could you share with us some of your achievements, challenges and the legacy you hope to establish in this struggle?
Some of my achievements have been the testimonials I receive from people who have listened to me, or read my work and they decide to change their eating habits. As one who is very aware of the poison in most foods, such testimonies mean a lot to me, because I know that is one person, a family and a community whose life/lives have been saved because of this food consciousness.
Secondly, I have been invited in many forums both here in the USA, back home in Kenya and in other countries, because of the work I do. This to me is an achievement because it informs me of the growing interest and sensitization on food issues.
I will give you an example, I have been invited for close to eight times on the Inooro FM radio station in Kenya. This local radio station has coverage of 3-4 million people across Kenya and even in Diaspora. I was amazed during one of my visits at home, when I travelled to visit a friend’s home in Meru, and the people in his village listened to that show and they took my teachings seriously. Some of the listeners in this show reach out to me through social media, and I have been able to influence their food choices the distances between us notwithstanding.
It is also reaffirming to have a person from my humble beginnings having an opportunity to learn how those in power operate while working with them from a position other than their subservient worker. I once gave a keynote at the University of Michigan, for example and then worked for a few days with the executive chef sharing healthy recipes that I have created. The amount of food the facility prepares was mind boggling. The university cafeteria prepared 27, 000 students every single day. It was an interesting experience. Yet the thing that stood out the most for me was that I first visited a kosher kitchen at the University of Michigan for the first time. The university was just about to roll the kitchen out. I therefore had an opportunity to see it and also realize how much power people can amass when they organize themselves. There were also halal options at the same university. How much power does African food elicit? I prepared all the recipes under my Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine for that reason. Decolonizing our food has to gain greater context, it is more than just going back to the food that my grandfathers and grandmothers ate. Our consciousness and astute home builders have to be nurtured and fine tuned.
Indeed, these are critical achievements, I know some people who are your ardent listeners and followers on social media.
Perhaps now you can share with us some of the challenges you have encountered or you envisage in this struggle?
The challenges which I have witnessed in my quest is what is being now ‘chided’ as not being so Kenyan, this is the middle class Kenyan citizen. People who have the knowledge and capacity to make right choices on their foods, people who can drive this quest into food justice and save our people from eating poisoned food.
But, this group as was recently evident during the fuel prices hikes, are complacent. We lack traction, a people who can organize around a certain food agenda such as organic seedlings, they can invest in a firm that can have organic farms in different regions in the country, easily accessible to our farmers, train farmers on organic farming practices so that we initiate a culture of growing and feeding on healthy foods.
Our people are still entrenched in eating unhealthy foods, yet we used to have a rich variety of indigenous foods such as arrow roots, the traditional vegetables which actually are high in their nutritional value.
We definitely need to rethink the Kenyan food timetable; we cannot always be feeding on Ugali from imported maize or rice that is not grown organically. As we develop this food culture, we need to start growing the foods which grow organically in our lands, for instance you can see cassava sprouting wildly and even bananas. Could our diet be more informed by such foods rather than the popular craze or fancy tastes? Let us also challenge ourselves on what plants will enrich our soils and could we crop rotate so that we never have to use fertilizers?
Our food system is so short sighted; we think that as long as I get food today even if it makes the soil saline, I am all good. Such a thought is neither practical nor sustainable at all. We need to think long term, that our soils stay enriched through our healthy farming practices. In other words, our diet can never rise above the health of our soil. This however gets even more complex when you add the political context. There are major corporations who are sitting on the sidelines, and at other times scheming to destabilize weak countries so that they can acquire their markets. One person said that behind every war, there is a market and behind every market there is a potential war. We therefore have to view our own markets in guarded ways.
Now, you asked me about my legacy, I want to tie these to both my achievements and the challenges, as the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wangari Maathai once said, we all have to do what a hummingbird does, our little drop of contribution in this space, which may contribute or trigger more consciousness and thus better food choices for our people.
For me, my little thing has been setting up Food Literacy Centers which will promote sustainable farming and eating practices. For now, Naivasha is almost complete as a center where people can visit or even stay there on a retreat as they learn about organic farming. I have in the recent years been growing and transplanting certified organic seeds in my farm here and in Naivasha. Very soon we shall have a variety of these seeds available for seed exchange, and not only seeds but also farm produce. While I am really excited about the practical things such as seeds and demonstration farms and cooking workshops, I am equally excited about creating content around food. Such content will include but not limited to essays, children’s books, recipe books and food theatre. We can’t create a sustainable culture just by cooking and feeding the stomach, we have to equally feed the mind. If it is true, and I have no reason to doubt it or think otherwise, nature abhors vacuum. We have to therefore create content that will spread the ideas and ideals of sustainability as a core practice of “utu”.
The other initiatives still in development are in Kitengela and Kilifi, where I would like to have learning resource centers which will be of benefit to the local communities. The goal is to gradually and radically transform, the discourse and the practice will impact on a population who will be smart enough to change their farming and dietary practices. The traditional thinking is that if one of two families or communities can make these right choices, then Chef. Kabui will have succeeded in his purpose in this corridor of life. What we now know is that such thinking is neither correct nor helpful. We know that until we have a national and global transformation of our food system, we are all in trouble. However, we will only get there a plate at a time, a family at a time and a community at a time.
Wow!! What a fine and thought provoking way to conclude this conversation. Indeed, the struggles around food should take center place for the common good and a sustainable future.
Thank You very much
