I have finished writing a book titled “How to read food labels: a practical guide for Papua New Guineans”. PNG is rapidly changing and one inevitable change that is obvious is the change in life-style and eating habits. The medical profession in PNG now recognise this change and we think this will contribute to the increasing life style diseases – diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart attacks and so on. With this in mind I decided to write a book to help my patients decide what kind of food to buy in the supermarkets. Most people do not understand the nutritional panel on food labels.

The idea of writing the book really came from a patient of mine. A diabetic patient. She was always asking me what foods to eat, how to cook, what foods to buy in the supermarket and some other questions which I have forgotten now. So I started researching and put together all the information I obtained. The booklet is the result of my frustration.

Well, writing is one thing but getting it published is another thing. And I needed a good editor – for free! I had no money to pay for the editing work.

Then I was contacted by Brian Robertson, a longtime teacher in PNG who is now writing science books for PNG schools. He wanted to write my story as a medical officer as an example of  careers in science. Brian also has a website that you can visit here. I took the opportunity to ask Brian to edit my book, which he gladly did. Now I am looking for a publisher/sponsor.

Brian has a wonderful website with a lot of resources for teachers in PNG. Visit his website which is called pngschoolbooks.com and see what is on offer there. He is currently running a competition too.