Orange revolution

Sweetpotatoes come in different colors and tastes (and sizes). The “yams” eaten in the United States are sweet and have orange and moist flesh. The staple of parts of Africa and the Pacific (and pig feed in China), is typically white-fleshed and not very sweet nor moist (notwithstanding variations like this purple variety.)

Anyway, the orange fleshed sweetpotato is stacked with beta-carotene, the stuff you need to eat for your body to make vitamin A. Many poor people have vitamin A deficiencies, which leads to stunted growth and blindness. So why don’t the poor sweetpotato eaters eat orange fleshed varieties? In part because they simply do not have them, or know about their health benefits. In part because they do not grow well in Africa (decimated by pests and diseases). And also because they do not taste right: too sweet for a staple.

The International Potato Center and partners have been trying to fix all that. Now they have made a nice video about getting orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes into the food-chain in Mozambique. The orange revolution:

https://vimeo.com/2278794

I wonder if they also promote mixing more sweetpotato leaves into the diet — even of white fleshed varieties. The leaves are a very good source of micro-nutrients, including beta-carotene! More fodder for the biofortification discussion.

Nibbles: Health, Fungi, Health, Pollan, Organic

  • Nobellist praises biodiversity, ignores food.
  • TED video on world-saving mushrooms.
  • God: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yieleling seed; to you, it shall be for meat.“
  • Pollan: “Vote with your fork, for a different kind of food. Go to the farmer’s market. Get out of the supermarket… Plant a garden… Declare your independence from the culture of fast food.”
  • Rodale Institute: “Yield data just by itself makes the case for a focused and persistent move to organic farming systems.”

R&B

A large number of variations on one simple (and very nutritious, being as how one is a cereal and one is a pulse) dish: rice and beans. Everyone who’s anyone (at least in the pressure cooker world of US-based food blogging) is there, with some nifty ideas on that lysine-tryptophan feasteroni.

Nibbles: Early diet, Rice, Veggies, Barley, Research, Taiwan, Coffee trade