Healthy eating is not only for white people, says chef Noni Godole
It’s no surprise that the West considered “Dr Sebi” a health fraud (he was a self-proclaimed healer who tried to get Michael Jackson off painkillers) because he stood firm against the pharmaceutical industry. It is however unsettling to see Africans reject the natural way of healing. But four years after Sebi’s passing, and being caught in a certain pandemic, Noni Godole is bringing about a change in the relationship abo darkie have with healthy eating.
“I feel like our Creator/Umvelinqange would move the earth just to get our attention, we are by birth attached to The Mother and She will do anything to get us to connect to our true selves. Somehow this has brought [us] closer to home than anything. We got to cook more, get to taste ginger, trust nature much deeper than we ever have. I was raised with umhlonyane, I still give it to my kids and I have it in the garden. For the first [time] our people actually believed in nature and trusted nature to heal them,” says Godole.
Godole is a chef and an untiring advocate for herbal healing. “I know our people are the hardest hit, we’re always the hardest hit where identity is concerned; we are given a day to celebrate who we are and a piece of our truth is slowly being wiped away by the ever-evolving world and of course convenience with that comes self-destruction and we tear pieces of our DNA while at it,” Godole tells me.
“We must reclaim our heritage and start eating right again, reclaim our relationship with the soil, with nature. The food we are consuming and claim to be our own is a lie, and it’s here to move us even further from our truth.”
Eating healthy seems daunting, not only for the taste buds but also the pocket. It’s a stigma attached to eating well: that it’s expensive. “That healthy eating is expensive and it’s for white people. I can’t deal!” exclaims Godole.
“Social conditioning is what’s killing us; we are told good food is expensive, and for you to be healthy you must spend. How much is a seedling, how much is one seed? A veg combo compared to a meat combo? By choosing veggies or growing them yourself over buying meat every day, meat which is killing you while you eat it. We’ve been wrongly programmed — go to the Yeoville market and see the excuses we create for convenience.
“It’s time we become ourselves, it’s time we live our truth openly because that is what will save us. We have natural born, gifted healers among us and it’s like having a team of superheroes that were chosen to carry and spread light. We need to share the knowledge that we were trusted with by what and who we are; we are suggesting much friendlier ways in which to live and save our world.”