Nutrition

April 8, 2013April 8, 2013

Folivory dissected

The greens tree: phylogenetic relationships among species whose leaves we eat. Taxon branches are shaded according to taxonomic order. Thanks to The Botanist in the Kitchen

Another tour de force from The Botanist in the Kitchen: why we eat the leaves that we do.

There’s a bunch of good stuff in this post with which to regale fellow diners, should you be that sort of dining companion, and lots with which to take issue too, if you’re feeling argumentative. Despite all the caveats, most of which she anticipates, Jeanne manages a rather startling bottom line:

At the family level, we see that the greens tree has 15 families, but that most of the greens regularly consumed in the Western world are from only five of the 415+ families of seed plants currently recognized: Amaranthaceae (goosefoot family), Apiaceae (the carrot family), Asteraceae (the sunflower family), Lamiaceae (the mints) and Brassicaceae (the mustard family).

How different is it for foodways not contaminated by Meditearranean ancestry?

April 5, 2013

Nibbles: Pigs, Wheat, Urban agriculture, Nutrition, Sago cakes

A heart-warming tale of raising pigs the right way.
Another heart-warming tale of breeding better wheat in Colorado.
Urban agriculture goes intensive and corporate. Not very heart warming.
Cornell students to solve nutrition problems in Ghana after 10-day visit. Is that heart warming? I have my doubts.
Alfred Russel Wallace’s very own sago cakes preserved at Kew. If that isn’t heart warming, I don’t know what is.

April 4, 2013April 4, 2013

Nibbles: Biofuels, Edible soybeans, Food policy, Nutrition rules, Seed course, TEK index, Doubled haploids, Pigeon fanciers, Gum arabic, Livestock goods & bads, Spanish genebank, SADC seed law, Heirloom tomatoes

Big Oil vs Big Corn. The Economist says End the ethanol tax.
Grow edamame, young farmer.
Agri experts call for a comprehensive food policy in Pakistan. Not gonna happen. There or anywhere else.
But is this where it would start?
Utterly confused by second-hand sources, I’m sending you straight to the horse’s mouth for information on Plant genetic resources and seeds: Community resilience in the face of change, a three week course in November 2013.
Yeah, but will they teach you about Terralingua’s Vitality Index of Traditional Environmental Knowledge?
CIMMYT doubles its haploids centrally now, at least in Africa.
He coulda been a contender, but instead he breeds pigeons. Which is just as good, in my estimation.
Photo essay on Sudan’s gum arabic industry.
ILRI spell out the pros and cons of livestock. Always good to have the data.
Who needs a national seed bank when you can have local ones like this one in Spain?
Remember that draft SADC seed law RAFI didn’t like yesterday? Well, they’re not alone.
Remember that Syngenta tomato that won that award yesterday? Well, now try these.

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013

Brainfood: Farming systems, Connectivity, Neolithic China, Paleolithic China, Wheat genomes, Litter domestication, Arabian relatives, Pepper composition, GMOs vs agrobiodiversity

Using biodiversity to link agricultural productivity with environmental quality: Results from three field experiments in Iowa. Diversify any way you can. Even in Iowa.
Improving conservation planning for semi-natural grasslands: Integrating connectivity into agri-environment schemes. Connect any way you can. Even in Europe.
Early millet use in northern China. Very early. Starch grains push broomcorn millet use in China back 1,000 years, and foxtail millet 2,000.
Paleolithic human exploitation of plant foods during the last glacial maximum in North China. And ten thousand years before millets, there were wild grasses, roots, tubers and gourds.
Draft genome of the wheat A-genome progenitor Triticum urartu. Can be used to find agronomically important genes. But settle down, it’s only one of the 3 wheat genomes, after all.
Aegilops tauschii draft genome sequence reveals a gene repertoire for wheat adaptation. Not so fast, here comes the D genome too…
Side-effects of plant domestication: ecosystem impacts of changes in litter quality. Domestication led to higher quality, more easily decomposed litter.
Crop wild relatives from the Arabian Peninsula. 400 of them.
Compositional Characterization of Native Peruvian Chili Peppers (Capsicum spp.). There’s much variation, but not that much.
Feeding the world: genetically modified crops versus agricultural biodiversity. Guess which one is drinking the other’s milkshake. And a similar blast from the past.

April 2, 2013

Healthier maize available for development

HealthMaize

The real subject of this picture is not the yellow ear front and centre, but the orange ones in the background. They represent a high-carotene variety that could add to the arsenal of foods targeted at vitamin A deficiency. This orange maize was bred by a backyard breeder who is looking to share the variety with people who could help to take it further. The variety is “particularly suited to 30-36 degrees of latitude,” so any researchers in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere who might be interested in continued development, leave a comment here. The breeder is being supported by Seed Matters, and they’ll be keeping an eye on this post to follow up directly.