We know hardly anything about the differences among varieties of the same crop. Oh sure, we know what different varieties look like; that’s easy. But detailed differences in composition are hard to find. There are the classics, of course, like wetet be gunche sorghum in Ethiopia, whose name translates as “milk in my mouth”. It contains almost a third more protein than other sorghum varieties and, even more important, about double the level of lysine, a vital amino acid for human nutrition. And there are the red and black varieties of rice, which are known to be high in iron and other minerals and vitamins and which are traditionally used to treat anaemia, especially in pregnant women. (I have been unable to discover whether this treatment is effective, in a Western sense, but it seems entirely reasonable, and a bit churlish to deny it.) But in general, we know next to nothing about the nutritional qualities of varieties, as opposed to species.
Continue reading “GI had no idea there was so much diversity”