Food Slideshows

Two food slideshows for your delectation today.

One celebrates the orange-fleshed sweet potato and other nu-nutritional delights. Or, as Wired magazine puts it: “a visit to the laboratory of the International Potato Center in Maputo, Mozambique, where biofortification researchers are saving lives with starch”. Gabba gabba hey!

The other is from Foreign Policy magazine, which says: “The food in our mouths defines us in far more fundamental and visceral terms than the gas in our tanks or the lines on a map. So it’s not surprising that the most important questions of global politics often boil down to: What should we eat?”

Alas, time is pressing and so a detailed appreciation is currently out of the question, but both sites accept comments, and we’d be delighted if you would care to share any comments you do have here.

Nibbles: Olive oil, Food security, Jamaica, Phillipines, EU seed laws, Sorghum

Breadfruit roundup

Our friend Diane Ragone of the Breadfruit Institute has kindly reminded us that there’s been quite a lot published on her favourite fruit lately. Almost worth a Brainfood all on its own, in fact.

Beyond the Bounty: Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) for food security and novel foods in the 21st Century. Great potential, but “a deeper understanding of the nutritional characteristics and the development of new products and markets are needed.” Which is kinda provided, at least to some extent, by the next two papers.

Diversity of breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis, Moraceae) seasonality: A resource for year-round nutrition. “About 24 cultivars exhibited very little seasonality and produced fruit throughout the year. The rest of the cultivars could be clustered into seasonality groups with characteristic fruiting patterns.”

Nutritional and morphological diversity of breadfruit (Artocarpus, Moraceae): Identification of elite cultivars for food security. “…individual varieties … are particularly good sources of mineral and protein nutrition.”

Brainfood: Biotechnology, Pollinators, Mulberries, Rice blast, Locavores, Roselle, Cassava, Protected areas, Traditional vegetables, Vitis, European diversity

Nibbles: Plectranthus, Roads, Fast food, Dog food, Hybrid rice, Mapping climate change, Turf, Cassava, iPhone app, Zizania, Rice