According to its website, ProNUTRITION “is an information resource that supports health care providers, community health workers, policy makers, and program managers with current, relevant, and practical knowledge and tools for decision-making.” There’s a discussion group on nutrition and HIV/AIDS and lots of documents.
New vegetables for Africa
The World Vegetable Center has announced a grant of US$ 12 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to produce new varieties of vegetable adapted to Africa and to boost the production of vegetable seed in the region. The release points out that vegetables represent a good route to better health, through better nutrition, and better incomes. It says that “African vegetable production continues to rely on old or imported European varieties which are often unsuited to the disease and climatic stresses encountered in Africa. The project will deliver 150 new vegetable varieties in cooperation with African seed companies.” My questions:
- Will these new vegetable varieties be of the same old vegetables?
- Will any of the “Lost Vegetables of Africa” be involved?
- Will they be diverse enough to at least slow the evolution of pests and diseases?
- Will the poorest farmers be able to afford seeds from commercial companies?
A consumer view of a neglected species
We normally blog production aspects here; for a change, go read the food diary of someone who decided to try and eat as much hemp — for the omega 3 oils — as she could. Committed consumers are clearly useful, as is good marketing. But the final conclusion seems to be that timing is everything.
Salute!
A study just published in Nature and reported in The Times here identified the particular class of the polyphenols found in red wine which confers the greatest health advantage, by suppressing production of a protein which narrows blood vessels. There’s been lots recently in the press about the supposed health benefits of moderate consumption of wine, in particular red wine, as part of the “Mediterranean diet.” Known as polymeric procyanidins, these polyphenols turn out to be present in particularly high concentrations in some wines from Sardinia and the Pyrenees. This is due to both the wine-making technique (the compounds are released from the seeds after a long period of fermentation) and variety (the Tannat grape from SW France is rich in these chemicals). The Cannonau wine from Nuoro (Sardinia) and the Madiran from Gers (France) have the highest levels of procyanidins, and it turns out that people from those areas are also of above-average longevity, especially the men.
That other groundnut
This article in African News Dimension sings the praises of Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea), saying it could be grown and consumed a lot more in Malawi. Interestingly, one of the reasons why it is underutilized may be customs such as the one which says that only grandparents and widows are allowed to grow it.