Sunday, February 27, 2011

Food Crisis versus Alternative Sources of Nutrients

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While the food crisis is getting heavy worldwide and contributes to unleash mass protests in Middle East, North Africa and India,  it is worth reminding how many botanic species might be a good source of nutrients.

Very often humans (mainly those living in urban areas) have lost knowledge about the natural world and common diets are dictated by the food companies commercial interests. The beautiful book by Raj Patel should be a must in your library.  As a consequence nutrients diversification shrinks and just a few main staple foods, markedly rice, maize and wheat, provide most of the energy intake.  In USA and Europe, animal products are even ahead of cereals as for their energy contribution to the average diet  hence causing further problems in terms of environment and health.

There is a need to increase and spread knowledge of the richness of edible plants which can be found throughout the world. In this regard I want to mention a great piece of work done by Prof. Dr. Eduardo Rapoport, Universidad Nacional del Camohue (Argentina), in order to identify invasive species in South America which turn out to be edible.

The following video reports on this programme...enjoy and eat well !

Avoid supermarkets,  remember that processed food is often poisonous and prepare your own food starting from healthy ingredients...



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