Brainfood: Micronutrients, Healthy Diet Basket, Meat alternatives, Chickpea polyphenols, African yam bean breeding, CC and nutrition, Biofortification, Mali diet diversity, Myanmar & Malawi agroforestry, African indigenous vegetables, Indian fruits

Global estimation of dietary micronutrient inadequacies: a modelling analysis. Maybe 5 billion people don’t get enough micronutrients from their diets, absent fortification and supplementation.
Global analysis reveals persistent shortfalls and regional differences in availability of foods needed for health. There’s enough food in the world, but not enough healthy foods. Those 5 billion people would probably agree.
A multicriteria analysis of meat and milk alternatives from nutritional, health, environmental, and cost perspectives. Pulses would seem to be a good bet as healthy foods.
Spanish chickpea gene-bank seeds (Cicer arietinum L.) offer an enhanced nutritional quality and polyphenol profile compared with commercial cultivars. Yeah, but some pulses are better than others.
Selection criteria and yield stability in a large collection of African yam bean [Sphenostylis stenocarpa (Hochst ex. A. Rich) Harms] accessions. Wait, abut about the nutritional content?
Climate change and nutrition-associated diseases. We’re going to need a lot more healthy foods. I vote for African yam bean.
Biofortification: Future Challenges for a Newly Emerging Technology to Improve Nutrition Security Sustainably. Biofortification is still not delivering enough more healthy foods. Will it ever? Jeremy available for comment.
Do diverse crops or diverse market purchases matter more for women’s diet quality in farm households of Mali? Do both, of course. Jeremy nods sagely.
The nexus between agroforestry landscapes and dietary diversity: insights from Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone. Do agroforestry too, while you’re at it.
Trees on farms improve dietary quality in rural Malawi. No, really, agroforestry works.
The effects of market-oriented farming on living standards, nutrition, and informal sharing arrangements of smallholder farmers: the case of African indigenous vegetables in Kenya. Well, at least incomes went up.
Unveiling the bountiful treasures of India’s fruit genetic resources. Plenty of scope for putting more healthy foods on tables. Or more income in pockets. Who knows, with any luck, maybe both? But don’t forget the pulses and vegetables too.

Fresh Nibbles

South Africa ratifies the Plant Treaty. Hope its genebank goes from strength to strength.
Ethiopia ratified a long time ago, and its genebank is going strong.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Cherokee Nation could ratify the Plant Treaty?
Want to build a community genebank like the Cherokee Nation’s? Here’s a resource.
China hasn’t ratified, but that hasn’t stopped it building genebanks.
And using their contents, presumably.
India has ratified, and is also building genebanks.
The Netherlands ratified long ago, but I’m not sure if it has a water lentil (duckweed) collection, or if it does whether it’s in the Plant Treaty’s Multilateral System. But maybe it will, and it will be, soon. I hope so.
The Dutch also have an animal genebank, BTW.
Watermelons are not in the Plant Treaty’s Multilateral System, but maybe they should be.
Neither is Trigonella, though many other temperate legume forages are, so who knows.

Published on February 7, 2025

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