Five little-known vegetables that could help end hunger

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2011/0711/Five-little-known-vegetables-that-could-help-end-hunger

No single food can put an end to hunger. But worldwide there are many different fruits and vegetables that are helping to improve nutrition and diets, while increasing incomes and improving livelihoods.

Today, Nourishing the Planet introduces a new series featuring the four vegetables – and one fruit that acts like a vegetable – that you have likely never heard of that are helping to alleviate hunger and poverty:

1. Guar: Like other legumes, guar’s (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba) roots have nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which improve the quality of the soil and increase the yield of subsequent crops. In addition to being an organic green manure, the guar seed is a valuable source of vegetable protein for humans and cattle. The seeds contain a thickening agent that can be used to strengthen paper, as well as improve the texture of foods such as ice cream and salad dressing.

Best way to eat it: Guar can be cooked in water until tender and sautéed with mustard oil and other seasonings, garnished with coriander and served hot as a flavorful entre or side.

Sending it to Paul so he can look for some of these next time he goes to the health food stores.

Celosia. That's a commonly grown ornamental flower in the U.S. Who'd a thunk it was edible?

Excellent article - thanks for posting.

Celosia argentea used as an alcohol solution may help heal burns and wounds faster. It has also been used in the past for skin sores, eruptions, and mouth sores. The blooming Celosia argentea is used as cut flower, dried and also edible.

amounts of protein or carbohydrates, though. You could eat a lot of them and still die of malnutrition. The bottom line is that where people are starving, it is not plants like these that are needed. None of these will assist in preventing starvation.

They are appreciated in the regions in which they grow, but are not staples. Every region has local vegetable foods, liked in that region, but rejected in other places. I'm sorry but this article is about minor foods. It has nothing to do with hunger. Only with side dishes.

misunderstood:

1. Guar, among all of the plants mentioned, is the only one that provides significant food value. It's already well-known, but is grown primarily to supply guar gum to the food processing industry. Guar gum is widely used as a thickening agent in processed food. Most is grown in India, and it does best in a very rainy climate. It can be grown in more arid conditions, and can be used as a legume. However, it is not a primary protein and calorie source anywhere.

2. The Dogon Shallot is eaten as a condiment, not a primary food source. It says so right in the article at the link. Like most of the onion family, it is not a major source of the nutrients that are so direly needed in places where people go hungry. It's a flavorant.

3. Spider Plant - Most of us had these as house plants in the late 60s and 70s. Their nutritional value, if eaten, is solely in the area of vitamins and micronutrients. You could eat tons of this without getting many calories, and it offers no protein whatsoever. Again, it is a secondary food, rather than a primary one.

4. Celosia - Like the spider plant this is a side dish or addition to other dishes. It offers little to no protein or carbohydrates. You could eat pounds of it daily and starve to death. Even the article mentions that it is an accompaniment to meat, fish, and cereal. It will not allay hunger or prevent starvation.

5. African Eggplant - I will quote a line from the article: "Even though the fruit is not well known for its nutritional content – it is 92 percent water – it also provides vitamin B, beta-carotene, and vitamin C in addition to calcium, iron, and potassium." I need say no more.

Aside from Guar, not a single one of these plants will do a damn thing to allay hunger or malnutrition. The need is not for side dishes. The need is for food that helps keep the body from wasting away. Vitamins are good...fiber is good...micronutrients are good. None will prevent hunger or starvation.


I would wager that the author of this article has never tasted any of these regional foods. I'm sure the author has consumed guar, though, in some processed food.

There's even more than enough food in countries with famines, nowadays; there's either logistical or political difficulties with getting the food to people, and five new crops won't help that.

This is an article that is typical of articles written by people who have plenty of food to eat on a regular basis. Much of the article is taken from Wikipedia and borrowed from other internet sources. Starving people do not need condiments and vegetables that supply only vitamins and trace nutrients. That is far from the problem. while the foods mentioned are market staples in some places, they are additions to the diet, and cannot make up for a lack of food that can sustain life.

Yes, they provide opportunities for local farmers, but they cannot solve the hunger problems of the world.

In the article, the portion on Celosia, completely misses the fact that celosia is the family of the amaranth, which is a pseudo cereal plant and is very productive. The seeds of amaranth do have nutritional value and are eaten in the same places where the other parts of the plant are used as an addition to the diet as a vegetable. That, to me is the primary indication that the author of this article hasn't a clue about the subject of hunger-prevention and starvation.

I detest this type of article, which does not address the real issues, but that discuss side dishes. It's typical of American writers who have not gone hungry a day in their lives, but who enjoy trying exotic foods. The funniest thing of all about this article is that two of the "vegetables" were described as being cooked in milk to lessen their bitterness. If you have milk in which to cook otherwise distasteful vegetables, then you are not really starving, to be quite frank.

Notably, this article and others similar to it are widespread on the internet, at places like FDL and other blogs. They miss the point entirely.

Today's blog page there is a good hint at the work done there, and the context in which it was written. The paper reprinted it to draw more attention to the work they do. And of course, this article in no way suggests these 5 plants could solve the hunger problems of the world, that is wild hyperbole and in my opinion, unfair to people doing lots of good work.
http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/

Every DUer should take a look at the blogs at the link, even look at the larger website, and then reread what you are saying.
Environment and Society page:
http://www.worldwatch.org/environment-society

"Over the last two years, the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project traveled to 25 countries in sub-Saharan African – the places where hunger is greatest – to meet with farmers, farmers’ groups, scientists, academics, journalists and other experts to discuss environmentally sustainable innovations in agriculture."
http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/a-sneak-peak-at-state-of-the-world-2011%E2%80%99s-new-trailer-nourishing-the-planet-worldwatch-hunger-agriculture-innovation-environment/

in the OP. It represents all that I think noxious about food articles regarding food in the third world. The group is fine, and does good work. This article, however, exemplifies a real flaw in such thinking. Instead of focusing on the economics of raising these minor crops as a way to create opportunities for small farmers, it touts the particular foods as some sort of solution to hunger. These particular foods do not do that. They are a good way for people to grow salable crops, but their use in the quest for the end of hunger in that part of the world is specious, since none of those foods are that nourishing.

You assume things not in evidence about what I think.

But you have used very strong words about the source of the material with which I do not agree. I am not sure you even read the article, it does not 'tout the particular foods as some sort of solution for world hunger' at all. Not in any way, shape or form. It does talk about the economics of raising these crops for sale, as it does in more detail in the articles about each plant from which this general interest blog draws.
I assume your words are your words, man. The article is not as you say it is, the group is undeserving of ranting diatribes and ties to controversial political cites, and I invite DU as a whole to look and read and see what they think on their own.
It is as if you are talking about a different article than the one cited. Utterly amazing to see. And again, let DU read and read the links and see what they think of the whole thing.
Just the level of rhetoric at such a group is not accurate, nor is it ever called for. In my opinion. Latching onto an excerpt from a report 2 years in the making and shouting Fire Dog Lake at is is just not cool. Not when the work is so important.
I provide links. You yourself should read them.

Here is a link to their Food and Agriculture section. The idea that these folks lack experience or context is not supported by their overall work at all. People should look and see what they think.
http://www.worldwatch.org/food-agriculture

With what part of my commentary on this blog do you disagree?

None of it is accurate or factual. I have simply offered links to the source of the work so that people can take a look at what they do and what they write about so that DUers can judge for themselves. The source group has been doing intense field work in Africa and this is part of a larger work. You go on about how they've never been anywhere or done anything, but they are just like some political blogger you do not like. Uncalled for, inaccurate, and just not cricket.
Additionally, the article itself is not as you frame it at all. It does not suggest these plants could end world hunger, it is not about 'regional foods' but about 5 African plants currently being used in ways that benefit the local economies there. It does not present conjecture, but examples, and it does not in anyway misstate the nutritional values of these plants.
Are you somehow opposed to the ways these plants are being used in Africa, or to Americans learning about that? Is there something wrong with the notion that using that which we have on hand in better ways might improve life in various ways in various places?
I mean, MM, you think you are arguing with the writer, but I can not see that the two of you disagree in anyway at all. The fact that it is a freestanding reprint in the CSM is good, for it draws attention to the larger work of the group. The fact that work is excerpted or looked at in pieces in secondary sources is not the fault of the work, nor is it a fault at all. This blog makes zero untrue claims, uses no exaggeration or hyperbole, it is simply telling stories from their ongoing field work.
And folks can look and see if it is to be 'detested'. They can decide if the authors are know nothing armchair fat cats. They can make up their minds on the objective and larger agenda of the piece and of its authors. I offer that you should as well. Heavy mud you are flinging, considering the actual facts of their work. If links to the source are a problem, I do not know what to tell you. Knowledge is a good thing.
If other DUers see that work as detestable, I'll be fairly shocked.

people, this is cited at the end of the OP article. Says all you say and much, much more. Funny, that.
http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/the-dogon-shallot-an-underground-favorite/

My source was a different one. As I said, it has little nutritional value, no more than any wild onion species. Therefore, it is as I said, of little use in ending hunger or starvation. Yes, it is grown and eaten in some places, and can add to the economic possibilities of people who grow it, but it is a seasoning, and not a staple food. Seasonings do not prevent hunger and starvation.

You keep insisting that I mean something other than I say. I do not. I mean what I say, and nothing more.

With that, I will no longer respond to further posts of yours in this thread.

And the article can be read by all, and the group that made it can be researched by all, because I put the links there. You claim the article is off base, but it says exactly what you are saying only with greater detail. Their facts about the plants are correct. So are yours. And yet you are furious, and that is funny.
You keep characterizing the article and taking issue with your own inferences rather that what the article actually says. I see nothing in what you are saying that actually disagrees with what the article says. It does not say the shallot has high value nutrition, it says it can be sold by poor people to an expanding market for money they need. That is what they are saying. You say the same thing, but seem to take great issue with the article saying it. Why do that?
These folks know what you know, and more. They have been to the places where the Dogon Shallot is being grown and sold, and they are REPORTING on that. They are not suggesting that this Shallot could feed the world. To claim that they are is what it is. And I really don't know what it is.
Links, read the links, man.

It's the same on the other site. The article does not make the point the title declares. It is that simple.

It is also true that each one of us could help end world hunger, while no one of us can do so alone, nor any five of us. Five plants that could help. Those are their words and that is the subject of the article. The statement is true.
And in addition, let us remember, it is the colorful rhetoric against the authors as uninformed and somehow related FDL. Your claim about this article says "it touts the particular foods as some sort of solution to hunger." The article does not do so. The title says these plants are possible components in a huge solution. To keep suggesting that the article says what you characterize it to say is just reckless.
You say, about the writers, not the subject: "This is an article that is typical of articles written by people who have plenty of food to eat on a regular basis. Much of the article is taken from Wikipedia and borrowed from other internet sources. Starving people do not need condiments and vegetables that supply only vitamins and trace nutrients."
Anyone who clicks on the links and reads up on the people reporting this information will see exactly who they are. And what they have been doing on the ground.
Again, it is as if you did not even read the article in full. But others should, and they should check out the larger work of that organization as well. As should you.

:thumbsup:

assessment. It is hard to see why these five were singled out as offering major contributions to the fight against hunger.

And foods have to fit in culturally as well. African egg plant is not going to win wide acceptance. It is a very bitter and sour fruit. It can be used in cooking if you know what to do with it. But it is not going to be accepted widely.

places like the ones mentioned in the article at the link. Unlike the foods mentioned in the article, rabbits are a great protein source. In addition, they can eat the plants mentioned in the article and actually provide needed protein to the hungry people there.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/U4900T/u4900T0m.htm

We could feed the whole planet on insect protein.
Beetle farms and the like.
Grind 'em up into a paste and make it into bread or something, and you'd never know it's bugs.

Of course, my wife says that if we try that, Monsanto will genetically engineer bigger and bigger food bugs, and eventually they'll get loose!

Insects will become even more plentiful, so that works out very well for us.

Rough estimates are that enough is grown for 10 billion or more to be well-fed as it is. A bunch of that is lost as waste, much is fed to animals, some is burned as fuel, etc.

I don't know that growing enough for 12 billion would end hunger; I think its a different kind of problem.

Celosia Properties
The composition of Celosia argentea per 100 g edible portion is: water 83.8 g, energy 185 kJ (44 kcal), protein 4.7 g, fat 0.7 g, carbohydrate 7.3 g, fibre 1.8 g, Ca 260 mg, P 43 mg, Fe 7.8 mg (Leung, W.-T.W., Busson, F. & Jardin, C., 1968). It is a dark green leafy vegetable with a high content of micronutrients, comparable with amaranth (Amaranthus cruentus). Young leaves harvested 5–7 weeks after sowing have the best nutritional value and are especially rich in Fe, vitamin A and vitamin C. The leaves contain phytic acid (120 mg/100g) and oxalic acid (20 mg/100g). The high oxalic acid content makes the leaves less suitable for fresh consumption. The composition is strongly influenced by environmental factors, e.g. soil fertility, fertilizer application and age of plant at harvest.
In tests in India, Celosia argentea seeds reduced blood glucose in alloxan-induced diabetic rats. Aqueous seed extracts showed antimetastatic and immunomodulating properties in tests with mice. The acidic polysaccharide celosian isolated from the seeds was found to be a potent antihepatotoxic agent for chemical and immunological liver injury models in animals. The antimitotic bicyclic peptides celogentins A–C and moroidin have been isolated from the seeds, and an antiviral protein has been isolated from the leaves.
Celosia argentea contains red betacyanins and yellow betaxanthins which are being tested as food colorants. Several glycopyranosyls have been isolated from celosia, including citrusin C which has skin depigmentation properties. The seed of Celosia argentea contains a fatty oil known as ‘celosia oil’ in India.

Guar is also a good source of protein.

The seeds of the spider plant are high in oil content. The oil can be extracted by pressing and does not require refining. After pressing, the remaining seed cake can be used for animal feed. Whole seeds can be used to feed chickens and other birds. Cows, camels, horses, and wild game animals graze on wild spider plants, and the leaves can be fed to livestock as forage.

and a good deal less in the way of logistics.

one of our problems is that we eat too few kinds of foods.

rec.

Eleagnus pungens varieties produce red berries that are just fine for eating. Ornamental, with yellow-and-gold leaves, it's drought-tolerant, fast growing, spreads well (it's invasive in some areas) and produces food. Tolerates cold well.

Molokhia (with a ton of other names; go with "Egyptian spinach" in English) grows to 6'+ and has nutritious leaves (cook them, first). Fairly drought and heat tolerant once established, I use it to shade part of my southern exposure. An annual, it also self-seeds.

Purslane ("verdolagas" in Spanish) High in omega-3 fatty acids, a weed that's being morphed into an ornamental. The only drawback in some states is that the purslane sawfly was introduced to eradicate purslane if it's growing in large amounts.

Serviceberry (aka "Saskatoon".) Grows to be a nice bushy treelike thing. Has nice tasting berries. Ornamental, with green leaves and white berries. Why have green ornamentals with no flowers when you can have serviceberry. Good for even cold climes.

Malabar spinach, very nice in warm climates, if you have a fence or trellis. Mucilaginous, you want to cook it.

Asian longbeans. Grows and flowers, setting seeds, even in fairly warm, humid conditions. Will take over a fence or trellis. Produces prolifically. I grew it in clay that was pretty much always soaked. It didn't mind it. Was fine down to about 25 degrees F.

Mibuna. Fairly heat tolerant, grows fast, produces a lot of leaf. Tasty raw or cooked.

uneducated of course but heres my two cents

yams/sweet potatos - high in all kindsa vitamins and minerals, root, easy to grow

soy beans - versatile, durable, nutritious

hemp seeds - easy to grow, the hemp plant is useful for fibers like paper, rope and cloth

rice - combines with brown beans to form a complete protein...semi nutritious if brown

boisen berries - vine, hearty, hard as hell to kill once established (as my mom) delicious fruit

granted im not a farmer, im an ameteur cook, and i keep the nutrition value of ingredients in mind so that i can increase the nutritional value of what i make (curry + sweet potatoes = yumm)

As many have noted. We (all of us on this planet) don't have a food producing problem. We produce enough for all to eat. We have a food distribution problem. Some of use have an overabundance of foods where we live. Other places, such as in Africa, there is chronic scarcity.

The problem is relatively the same everywhere. We could all use what's in our environments a little better. These five just happen to be found on the African continent in abundance. Will they replace reliable protein sources? No. But every little bit helps. Using native shallots means you don't have to import so many onions or others in that family from around the world, probably for a premium price.

edit: spelling.

What about Amaranth or pigweed? I just spent an entire day trying to chop thorny pigweed out of a pea field with a machete and I honestly don't think you could kill that shit with a nuke, much less a drought or a flood. Amaranth isn't quite as hardy, but it's still pretty easy to keep alive.

The seeds have around 600 calories of per cup (Much of which is protein and fat) and the leaves are edible (Not the thorny kind, of course) and have a nutritional content and flavor similar to spinach.