This short piece from EurekAlert describes research in Spain which compared lots of different honeys and showed that the best for antioxidants is that which bees make from honeydew, the exudate produced by plants when they’ve been attacked by sap-sucking bugs. So let’s all go out and eat more honeydew honey, right? Well, we better be quick about it. Unfortunately, according to this other piece coincidentally also published today, life for European bees is set to get considerably more difficult, due to the incursion of Chinese wasps. It is already pretty bad for American bees in 22 states due to something nasty called Colony Collapse Disorder, according to this. Which completes today’s trifecta.
Brazil to market biodiversity
Under an Environment Ministry initiative in Brazil research groups have selected 775 species to encourage production and hopefully develop major markets. Read about it here:
Five books will be published this year, each dedicated to one of the five major regions of Brazil, containing the knowledge that has been accumulated about these “plants of the future”. Seminars for the business community will be held to spread the word about the potential of these plants, which are ornamental or used to produce foods, beverages, medicines, oils and perfumes.
Olive oil spreads
There’s increasing recognition around the world that olive oil, as a key component of the so-called Mediterranean diet, is really good for you. The latest news is about its effect on ulcers. So obviously the traditional growing countries are trying to expand cultivation and production. But as this article points out, that’s not always so easy. Pity there’s nothing in the piece on varieties, though.
Wild food plants of Zimbabwe
According to this article in the Harare Herald, the Kellogg Foundation will be supporting research by University of Zimbabwe scientists into “wild and famine plant foods, their preparation and preservation (and) nutrient analysis … to enhance livelihood security.”
Heirlooms are better for you
Tomatoes come in many more colours than red and one of them — the tangerine tomato — has proved to be a much better source of important nutrients than its red cousins. Tangerine tomatoes are richer in the cis form of the chemical lycopene, while red tomatoes contain the trans form of the chemical. Researchers fed human volunteers tomato sauce for breakfast. Those who ate tangerine tomatoes absorbed almost three times more lycopene than those fed red tomatoes, even though those red varieties were known to be especially high in lycopene.
Lycopene is rapidly finding favour as an antioxidant that can help to protect against various forms of disease. While researchers scramble to produce high-lycopene fruits and vegetables, Tangerine is an heirloom tomato that has been around for decades. I’m sure nobody grew it for its cis-lycopene; they just liked the look and taste. But that’s the thing about agricultural biodiversity; you never know what you’ll find when you go looking.
Article: Carotenoid Absorption in Humans Consuming Tomato Sauces Obtained from Tangerine or High-beta Carotene Varieties of Tomatoes
Photo from the W. Atlee Burpee & Co.