In the latest Eat This Newsletter I shared this item, which may be relevant here too.
There’s no shortage of advice that we should all eat more vegetables. They are undoubtedly good for long-term health, and not eating enough vegetables is one of the top five dietary risk factors for disease. And yet, despite all the exhortations and official guidelines, globally around the world people eat only 60% by weight of the vegetables they should. What to do?
The facts above are just some I lifted from a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science: Reversing vegetable biodiversity loss to diversify diets. The authors are a who’s who of agricultural biodiversity and nutrition (many of them familiar to Eat This Podcast). They offer a four-pronged solution, avoiding the whole fruit-vegetable schism with a wise reflection: “Because culinary traditions and nutritional perceptions vary across regions, the specific edible parts and species considered vegetables can differ across cultures”.
Prong 1: Secure vegetable biodiversity for the future. Collect more vegetable diversity and make sure that existing diversity in collections is kept in good working order.
Prong 2: Harness vegetable biodiversity to deliver new varieties. Give farmers, researchers and breeders access to the collected diversity and information about it so that they can improve varieties across the whole range of vegetable species.
Prong 3: Promote vegetable biodiversity to diversify diets. Include more and more different vegetables in meals at school and at home, primarily by linking local growers to school feeding programmes and local markets.
Prong 4: Integrate vegetable biodiversity into policy frameworks for long-term impact. Of course, as night follows day, policy frameworks follow suggestions for action.
The paper is a really interesting read. It emerges from a three-year pilot project in four African countries and summarises a lot of thinking over the years. I’d love to see all countries grasp the four prongs and run with them. But, NGL, and with the greatest respect to the authors, that seems unlikely. Please, prove me wrong.