The incessant rejection of Nigerian livestock and fish abroad has been partly linked to wrong application of antibiotics by farmers, which has been identified as causes of serious cases of antibiotics resistance in humans. To this end, experts have discovered an alternative – onion peels, considered as the richest part of onions because it contains what scientists call quercetin.
This and many more, are part of the findings of Prof. Aderolu Ademola Zaid, which will be presented to the public in an inaugural lecture on August 21, 2024 at the J.F Ade Ajayi Auditorium, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos. The title is“Food-Feed Competition: The Nutritionist as an umpire.”
Prof Zaid said: “Most of our fishes are not acceptable abroad because we use antibiotics. In Nigeria, antibiotics are not used only for the treatment of fish, they are also used as blood promoters and hardly any farmer will wait for the withdrawal period of these antibiotics. When you feed antibiotics, you need minimum of like 14 days space, even if it’s the case of laying of eggs, you must not sell the eggs, the meat, the milks because they are not fit for human consumption because of the carryover antibiotics effects, but how many farmers will be faithful to these? 
“Even the fish, before you can sell it, it has to be between 14 to 21 days of using these antibiotics. These antibiotics, if the carryover gets to man and also gets to the environment, we’ll now have serious cases of antibiotics resistance. When you take two capsules of antibiotics that suppose to heal you now, you’ll have to use four before you can be cured.
“So, we had to find alternatives to this – what can we use that will be bio-degradable and our products will still be acceptable? Part of what we found out is the use of onion peels (eepoalubosa). We usually discard it, we don’t even eat it, but that’s the richest part of the onion because it contains what scientists called quercetin.”
Prof. Zaid said the quercetin is 20 per cent, even higher than the onion itself. “So, instead of using antibiotics, we now use various levels like putting one or two spoons of this in fish meal and see. We tested various levels and found out that if you use onion peels in preparing fish feeds, not even the onions, the fish will grow faster and they will not fall sick.
Another thing that we have experimented and we are working on is what we called fruits; scientifically we call it tamileniacatapa, or even guava leave – all these leaves when you squeeze them and put in the corn directly or in the fish meal, the fish will not get sick.”
But what we have is seen is that it is the same material that is used in compounding. Human needs protein, animals too need protein, just as both needs carbohydrates. The major contention is between fish meal and maize, then soyabeans –these are seriously being competed for.
While speaking on the food-feed struggle, he said nutritionists have been forced to look for alternative feeding ingredients or the non-conventional feeding ingredients to lessen the competition between man and animal for it.
“For example, the first one we think about was agro industrial waste, from the factory producing different products, what are their waste products? Products that humans cannot take, can we pass them to the animals? Gone are the days when you have biscuits, sausage wastes that are not up to the size, even noodles wastes, that are meant to be dumped away, maybe they failed quality test and you just pack them. They were all available before now, but because industries are now told to minimize their waste to between five to 10 per cent, so these materials are not equally available now, but what we still have that are still available there are what are those called maybe agro industrial by-products like yam peels, potato peels, corn cubs and what have you.
“So, animals decided to settle on this. But then humans now found great use for these waste products again, they said when you consume maize cubs that it contains some nutritional benefits that will improve your health status, when you boil your plantain with the peels intact, it increases libido, when you boil yam without peeling it, it helps you to control your blood sugar and so many other reasons fo0r usage of what is now a waste.
“So, animals do not have options rather to also transgress into human feeds, so the function of the nutritionists is to strike a balance. What you feed to the animals is what you are eventually going to meet in their body for you to consume. So, beyond this, we now thought of improving the health status of these animals without using drugs.”
The Don stressed that after several efforts, they succeeded in coming up with a lot of feed materials that are not common, that can grow in poor soil, which humans are not eating and that have no competition between human and animals for it, and are cheap.
“So, we have been able to tackle food-feed struggle but at the end of the day, the conclusion we are making is that there’s nothing called three-square meal, we have over billion people that are being treated for food related obesity and a good number of people are crying for food, same with animals. So, you should not regulate the food being given to animals alone, you should also regulate food given to man.
“So, the idea is you live and let others live, that is the guiding rule at the animal kingdom and that is what we agitate at the end of the day. The same can apply to any other animals – all livestock, including fish feed on similar feed materials, same as human. While other industries are using their grains for bio-fuel, we prefer to use the grains for beer production; we prefer to produce beer to feed the animals which we feed on.”
