Food Habits of Uganda

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Food taboos - ritual foods - customs

Uganda's Food Taboos of the 1960s

• Bugosa district: For females and female children over 6 years it was forbidden to consume eggs, poultry, mutton, pork and certain kind of fish. No specific taboos were related to pregnancy or lactation. It was thought that the taboos were not very strictly observed and were therefore ignored by the more educated.
• Bukedi district: Food taboos did not appear very widely in Bukedi district. The Iteso, the largest single ethnical group, forbade females to eat eggs, chicken and pork. The Bantu tribes kept similar restrictions, although not very seriously and the Nilotic Jopadhola are seemingly without any taboos of nutritional importance.
  
• Ankole district: In this district female Banyankole over the age of six years were forbidden to take eggs, chicken, pork and goat's milk. Fish was also taboo to all Banyankole. The Bahima group had numerous taboos relating to milk, the most important being that it was not allowed to bring the milk in contact with other foods, even in the stomach. Therefore, when milk had been drunk other foods could only be consumed after 12 hours had elapsed or after purging.
  
• Baganda, Bantu people, were the biggest and most advanced tribe in Uganda. As in several parts of East Africa eggs, chicken were proscribed among the Baganda women, as were pork, mutton and several species of fish. During pregnancy, salt must be avoided as well as hot food which was believed that it might burn the child. Also hard food was forbidden because it was believed that it might stock in the throat. Yam, known as "ndagu" was restricted because it was believed that the child could get stupid through its consumption.
  

References:
Burgess, H. J. L. (1962). "Protein-calorie malnutrition in Uganda, II-Busoga District, III-Bukedi District, IV-Bugisu District, V-Ankole district." E.A. Med J 39

Rutishauser, I. H. E. (1963). "Custom and child Health in Buganda." Tropical Geographic Medicine 15: 138-147.

Jelliffe, D. B. and J. F. Bennett (1961). "Cultural and anthropological factors in infant and maternal nutrition." Fed. Proc. 20: 185-187

Tribal taboos, a cause of protein maldistribution?

Tribal taboos against the consumption of certain types of foods by specific groups of the population, especially women and female children were one of the main causes of protein maldistribution in several regions throughout Uganda. In Iteso, females over 6 years old were forbidden to eat chicken, eggs and pork. The Banyankole forbade the same population group the same foods and also mutton and goat's milk and fish was taboo to all. In Kigezi we not allowed to eat eggs, chicken, mutton, pork and fish. It is notable that the women were the most affected by the food taboos.

Reference: Cleave, J. H. (1968). "Food consumption in Uganda." E.A. Med J I: 70.

No chicken and eggs for women in Teso

In the two small administrative units, Ajuluku and Opami in Teso, Uganda it was a "taboo" for women to eat chicken or eggs but a man could eat 4 or 5 chicken a year as well as the added eggs which a hen did not lay. Fresh eggs were never eaten.

PDF: An investigation into health and agriculture in Teso, Uganda. Agriculture Survey Committee 1937

Clan foods

Each of the clans, of which the Baganda people were composed, had a totem, which may not be eaten by a clan member. These restrictions, which had never been a major or common food included:

• Grasshoppers (nsenene)
  
• Lungfish
  
• One variety of bean
  

Reference: Jelliffe, D. B. and J. F. Bennett (1961). "Cultural and anthropological factors in infant and maternal nutrition." Fed. Proc. 20: 185-187

Ritual foods for the Baganda people

Food played a major role in most of the Kiganda celebrations:

• Exchange of gifts of food at traditional weddings
  
• Naming ceremony of a child
• Birth of twins

Food which was associated with feasts and celebrations:

• Matoke (plantain)
  
• Sesame
  
• Mushroom
  
• Chicken
  
• Fish
  

Rutishauser, I. H. E. (1963). "Custom and child Health in Buganda." Tropical Geographic Medicine 15: 138-147.

Created by Verena Raschke 2005 / Contact