Eating as a global citizen

For almost 35 years, I've primarily eaten a vegetarian diet. (Has it been that long already?) Five years ago, I embarked, unsuspectingly, on what wound up being a series of dietary experiments.

I started by tracking and adjusting macro-nutrient ratios and eating more dairy, eggs, and legumes. After developing digestive problems, I spent three months not eating a long list of suspected allergens, including dairy and eggs; gradually reintroduced foods; consulted an allergist; and finally eliminated sulphites, sugars, and refined starches. Having no easy way to describe my diet, I now simply call myself a picky eater.

In the few months before I left for Malawi, many people expressed curiosity about how I would eat here. I had a lot of curiosity about that myself!

What do Malawians eat?

The remarkably consistent Malawian restaurant menu
(nkhanga = goat)

My first exposure to Malawian food is on my first day at lunchtime when my roommate walks me to the Spar grocery store to buy carrots. Along the way, we pass a number of outdoor barbecues and food trucks where vendors are roasting chicken (nkhuku in Chichewa), and perhaps other meat, served with either nsima or white rice (mpunga). The offerings are remarkably consistent.

At the Spar store, a long queue of office workers waits at the hot food counter to order various types of stewed meat with either nsima, white rice, or Irish potatoes, and perhaps some green beans or stewed pumpkin leaves on the side. Similar cafeteria-style services at gas stations serve the same foods.

 A catered lunch at the CARE office: chambo, rice and vegetables

Malawians refer to any food that accompanies nsima, whether meat or vegetable, as relish. This is telling. As in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa, starches are people's primary food source. Nsima, white rice, and potatoes are the mealtime favourites.

Roasted maize, which I find disappointingly tough and starchy, is sold for nine cents a cob on street corners. The white bread eaten here in many forms (scones, muffins, buns, etc.) is, by North American standards, plain and dry. Puffed maize snacks monopolize whole aisles in the grocery stores, and are in every corner shop. There is even a sweetened and flavoured maize beverage: Super Meheu.

A typical snack at a district meeting, which many eat as a meal replacement

Styrofoam-flavoured puffed maize snack

While middle class Malawians seem to eat meat or fish with every lunch or dinner, poor Malawians eat meat more rarely and in smaller amounts. And because meat is expensive, people make use of an expansive range of protein foods. My colleague Mike's favourite dish is offals, which are highly nutritious and highly under-appreciated in North America.

The typical snack at a catered meeting: meat and a bun

Different regions of the country have their own specialties. A market vendor near my home sells roasted grasshoppers. I have seen long shish-kebobs of very small birds or mice sold along the roadsides. At one time of the year, dead bats (sonosono in Chichewa) are available in the Lilongwe markets. And the northern lakeside is famous for its flyburgers. (Yes, you read that right.)

Birds for sale

The cornucopia

As is to be expected, my diet has fluctuated since I arrived. I've sampled a lot of foods, including nsima, maize, baked goods, mandasi, and chambo (a tilapia-like fish from Lake Malawi). Unfortunately, after four months and much experimentation, I've found I have no interest or appetite for most of what's commonly eaten here.

There are local foods that I do like. My favourite dish is pumpkin leaves stewed with onions, tomatoes, and lots of groundnut flour. I like the stewed beans here, too, on the rare occasions when a restaurant has them.

Stewed beans, nkwani wotendera (pumpkin leaves with groundnut flour),
and Irish potatoes

I enjoy the roasted sweet potatoes or boiled peanuts that vendors sell on the streets. And my colleagues are impressed that I sometimes go to the ziwaya to get deep fried chips and eggs with cabbage salad.

A chiwaya, or outdoor deep fryer (plural: ziwaya)

Chipisi ndi dzuri chapa chiwaya (chips and a deep-fried egg with cabbage salad)

There are also many foods here that excite me. Produce is amazingly fresh and abundant. On almost every street, people sell bananas, head-sized avocados, fresh or dried groundnuts, perfectly ripe tomatoes, and bundles of red onions. Juicy, sweet tangerines have been in season for a few months now and are also ubiquitous. Cycling home from work, I frequently stop to buy ripe papaya, pineapple, or watermelon from roadside vendors.

In addition to these, vendors in every market, whether in Lilongwe or in the outlying towns and villages, sell sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, cassava, and half a dozen varieties of freshly shelled beans. There are more types of greens than I knew existed: pumpkin, rape, and sweet potato leaves, as well as arugula, kale, and "Chinese". I get particularly excited about the cabbage: huge, beautiful heads of crisp crucifers.

I've fallen in love with the pumpkins here, which are bluish-green on the outside instead of orange, and are flatter than the North American variety. In flavour and texture, their flesh is like a cross between a North American pumpkin and a butternut squash.

The Lilongwe markets and supermarkets offer an even greater variety of produce: super fresh green beans; giant, juicy carrots; cantaloupes, honeydews, and dark yellow musk melons; the largest and most delicious passion fruit I've ever tasted.

The cost of food

Much more so than in North America, the type and quality of food available here depends on the season, the weather, and where one is in the country. So far my experience has been of the most abundant times and the most comfortable seasons.

Fresh peanuts

I'm living off a monthly living allowance that's intended to cover my basic needs, but I'm easily able to pay for my groceries. I can even afford to buy some items imported from South Africa or beyond that are at least as expensive as they would be in Canada, and that are only affordable to the middle class and wealthy: items like soy sauce, sesame oil, flax meal, dates, and tahini. I confess that there have also been times when I've soothed my emotions with episodes of soft ice cream (CA$1.26) or dark chocolate (CA$6 or more for 100g).

To me, anything grown locally is very affordable. A very large bunch of bananas or a giant cabbage is at most CA$3.60, and feeds me all week. It's difficult for me to imagine that in the midst of this apparent abundance, people go hungry. I'm surprised when one of the guards at Savanna Courtyard talks about not buying bananas because they're so overpriced this year, or when a co-worker tells me cabbage is too expensive for her and her family.

She's not alone. While the cost of 5-10 servings of fruit and vegetables per day is only 2% of a family's average income in Canada or the U.S., it can be as high as 52% in low-income countries like Malawi.

Bombara groundnuts, which are super nutritious and taste like a cross of peanuts and beans

Finding a balance

All of this, as well as being part of a project to improve nutrition for the poorest in this country, has caused me to think a lot about how I eat, and about how I want to eat.

As may be obvious already, I've had many emotions about food since I've arrived. Food — so fundamental to our survival and health — is such a sensual experience, so tied to pleasure and every other emotion. What we eat can join us together, and it can also set us apart.

A delicious, communal Ethiopian feast
(Injera, the bread, is made with teff and sorghum.)

In a culture that places high value on togetherness, family, and community, I am already set apart by my whiteness, wealth, foreignness, and North American upbringing. Early on, I felt guilty for indulging in foods that are obvious luxuries — fresh strawberries! I've come to accept that I will have these occasional indulgences, and not feel quite so separated by them. My fresh strawberries provide income to the man selling them on the street. On a road trip, I buy apples for my co-workers. The women at the checkout counter get to taste dates for the first time.

Rather than try to eat like a Malawian — there are many good reasons why malnutrition is a problem here — I've been inspired by a former colleague to eat like a global citizen. (Thank you, Trevor Seguin!)

Wholegrain maize and flaxmeal tortillas with avocado

For the past eight weeks, I've been following the EAT-Lancet Commission diet, a flexible set of guidelines designed to balance human and planetary health. At a global level, the recommended changes would double consumption of fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes, and reduce consumption of red meat and sugar by more than 50%. (If you're interested in this, there are links below where you can learn more.)

So how do I eat in Malawi?

After much experimentation, my breakfast is now as it was before I left: oatmeal with flax, fruit, soy milk, and a cup of tea.

My lunch today was a big salad of arugula (grown outside my door), shredded carrot, beans marinated in garlic and lime juice, avocado, and papaya; a tortilla made from whole maize flour and flaxmeal, an apple, a few dates, and some groundnuts.

Dinner might be a bowl of lentil vegetable stew with a sesame maize flour biscuit; cauliflower masala, dal, and chapati; Mexican beans, a maize tortilla, and grilled vegetables; stir-fried ginger-garlic-sesame-chili tofu and bok choy with brown rice; a homemade bean burger, sweet potato, cashew cream, and steamed broccoli...

Vegetable kolhapur, roti, and cucumber raita in Mzuzu

As you can see, this is not a deprivation diet (at least, not from my perspective). I still don't eat meat, and rarely have eggs or dairy — but even without adopting the full range of possibilities offered by the EAT-Lancet diet, I enjoy my food immensely, and I feel good about what I eat.

I also recognize that I have an extraordinary amount of freedom and privilege. It's possible and much easier for me to make this choice than it would be for the vast majority of people on this planet. Knowing that, and the enormous effect our diets have — on ourselves, our families, our communities, our planet — I feel very lucky to be able to do this. I want to trust that even these small changes make a difference.

Copyright © 2019 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

Resources to support change

Watch the "EAT-Lancet Explained" video or read the EAT-Lancet summary report

The Will Power Instinct. McGonigal, Kelly. Google Talk, February 2012.

Create a Chain Reaction of Good Habits with the Domino Effect. Clear, James. Lifehacker, July 26, 2016.

My daily diet audit

References to learn more

On carrots and curiosity: eating fruit and vegetables is associated with greater flourishing in daily life. Conner TS1, Brookie KL, Richardson AC, Polak MA. The Journal of Health and Psychology, May 2015.

What you eat effects your productivity. Ron Friedman, Ph.D. Harvard Business Review, October 2014.

Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: An inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake. Hall, KD et al. Cell Metabolism, May 16, 2019.

The startling link between sugar and Alzheimers. Khazan, Olga. The Atlantic, January 26, 2018.

What Is the Hunger-Obesity Paradox? Scheier, Lee M. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, June 2005, Volume 105, Issue 6, pp 883–885.

How the Western Diet Has Derailed Our Evolution. Velasquez-Manoff, Moises. Nautilus, November 12, 2015. 

Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Willett, Walter; Rockström, Johan et al. Lancet. 2019; 393: 447–92.


Allen Carr has written a number of books designed to help people free themselves from addiction, including food addiction. If this interests you, I recommend either Good Sugar, Bad Sugar or The Easyweigh to Lose Weight.

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Malawi album #2 on Google Photos

Please note that the views expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cuso International.