The Journal of the American Dietetic Association has a paper ((Impact of garden-based youth nutrition intervention programs: A review. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Volume 109, Issue 2, Pages 273-280. R. Robinson-O’Brien, M. Story, S. Heim.)) which goes all meta on projects which aimed to encourage kids to eat more fruit and vegetables by getting them to work in gardens, for example at school. It covers the period 1990-2007, but only US-based studies, alas. I’m trying to get hold of the paper, but from the abstract it seems that the best that can be said about such interventions is that they may have a nutrition impact. We have blogged about how people are using school gardens etc. to educate yoofs about the importance of agrobiodiversity: it’s kind of sad to see that it is not entirely clear if the message is getting through.
Nibbles: Training, Teapot, Onion
- Food and Nutrition Security training course starts 30 March 2009. Is biodiversity involved?
- Giant teapot made of coconut shell wins national record.
- Giant database made of food items claims world record. Via.
- Heroes of Horticulture exhibit interrupts US Inauguration. Jeremy comments: “Yay!”
Beyond ugali and matharu
“[T]raditional vegetables are considered ‘backward’ and tend to be sold in poor neighbourhoods under unhygienic conditions.”
Er, yes, but that’s changing. So Kenyans who do want to follow the advice in a recent op-ed in the Daily Nation and change their diet should find it easier and pleasanter to do so.
Fighting osteoporosis with lettuce
Researchers have apparently engineered lettuce to express higher levels of the sCAX1 gene which pumps calcium into the cell’s vacuole, leading to 25-32% higher levels of the nutrient in the leaves. Sadly, there’s nothing in the article about genetic variation in Ca content among different varieties, so it’s not clear whether these increases could have been achieved by conventional breeding. Anyway, despite the paper, which I nibbled yesterday, showing the possibility of a link between Ca content and bitterness, there was apparently no difference in bitterness between the normal and biofortified lettuces. So that’s allright then.
Nibbles: Spices, Tequila, Tea, Potatoes, Archive, Africa, Carotenoids, Calcium, AGR, Ethiopia, Wheat blast
- Where do spices come from, mummy?
- Even “good” tequila can be bad for you. Well I never.
- Sparkling tea? Call it a microwine. Via.
- More potatoes. …
- … but the kicker is the historical archive she links to.
- AGRA and Earth Institute to collaborate. Africa not available for comment.
- More Pacific food crop nutrition goodness from Lois et al.
- Children may not like their veggies because of the Ca content.
- Canada down to 95% Holsteins. Oh dear.
- “The large crop genetic diversity that already exists in Ethiopia will make adapting agricultural systems to the locally changing conditions relatively easy.” Well, maybe…
- Screening Kansas wheat varieties for resistance to wheat blast.