Ethnic Food Plants of Indo-Gangetic Plains and Central India
T. Pullaiah, K. V. Krishnamurthy, Bir Bahadur in Ethnobotany of India, 2017
It is revealed from the present review that utilization of plants generally depends upon the availability of these plants in forests. Vegetables are regularly eaten by tribals, either cooked or separate preparation. They may be leafy vegetable or non leafy and tuberous. Mostly leaves, fruits, tuber, flowers, rhizome, inflorescence, stem, seeds or sometime whole plants are used as supplementary foods. Analytical study proves that the plants used by tribals as food rich in nutritional property (Jain, 1963). Several time, plant parts are used as staple food while some are used at the time of scarcity like famine, drought, etc. Most of the edible fruits are eaten as raw, which can provide essential supplements of vitamins and minerals. It is the sweetest pulp or the fleshy palatable pericarp of ripe berries, drupe or nuts that is generally consumed. Tribals consume sufficient amount of fiber food in their diet, hence constipation problem is rarely found.
Paleolithic Diets
Nathalie Bergeron, Patty W. Siri-Tarino, George A. Bray, Ronald M. Krauss in Nutrition and Cardiometabolic Health, 2017
During our evolution, wild seeds were available from various plants, but not from the grass family (Poaceae), which includes today’s wheat, rice, maize, and so on, and rarely or never from one plant species every day. There is evidence for sporadic consumption of legume seeds during the latter part of the Paleolithic period (Jones 2009). Nevertheless, seeds from legumes apparently became staple foods only during the emergence of agriculture, as evidenced by gradual changes in their form and quality as a consequence of domestication (Zohary and Hopf 1973; Berger et al. 2003). Contemporary hunter–gatherers, in particular those living in arid, hot, marginal environments (Australian Aborigines, Kalahari Bushmen), often include large, fatty seeds in their diet, but these provide a relatively small amount of energy on an annual basis, and much less than is now provided by wheat, rice, or maize (Lee 1968; O’Connell et al. 1983; Cordain et al. 2005).
International Trade, Food Security and Nutrition
Bill Pritchard, Rodomiro Ortiz, Meera Shekar in Routledge Handbook of Food and Nutrition Security, 2016
If many farmers rejected the assumptions of the AoA, so too, did some negotiators. In theory, international trade increases efficiency and lowers consumer prices. But this assumes countries are starting from a position of food self-sufficiency and that international markets are not distorted. Of course, in practice most countries were already deeply enmeshed in international markets, especially most of the least developed countries. And those markets were not undistorted. Many developing countries had shaped their food consumption around staple foods that were available in international markets for less than market prices, because of food aid programmes, or export subsidies, or domestic support in the exporting country.
Probiotic-directed modulation of gut microbiota is basal microbiome dependent
Published in Gut Microbes, 2020
Qiangchuan Hou, Feiyan Zhao, Wenjun Liu, Ruirui Lv, Wei Wei Thwe Khine, Jia Han, Zhihong Sun, Yuan-Kun Lee, Heping Zhang
Population stratification is a useful approach for better understanding complex biological problems in human health and wellbeing. The hypothesis that this stratification approach applies to the human gut microbiome, in the form of distinct community composition types termed enterotypes, was evaluated in this study. This indicated that variation in the gut microbiota of healthy Asian adults clustered into two enterotype groups that were driven by trade-offs between P. copri/F. prausnitzii and F. prausnitzii/B. dorei. For the first time, we defined the bacteria that were representative of each enterotype at the species level. This is an advance on previous studies that were limited by the length of sequencing technology and could only identify gut representative bacteria at the genus level.34–36 Although not statistically significant, we found some differences in dietary habits between the PF and FB enterotypes. For example, PF enterotypes consumed wheat, rice, eggs, fruits and seafood more frequently than FB enterotypes. Staple foods were their main source of carbohydrate. Previous studies have shown that the PF enterotypes were strongly dependent on carbohydrates in the diet.37,38 In addition, eggs and chickens are known to contain high concentrations of vitamin A and vitamin B5, and that fruits and seafood are part of the Mediterranean diet, all of which favor the growth of Prevotella in the gut.39,40 Our results are in accord with the notion that diet plays an important role in shaping an individual’s enterotype.
Obesity is associated with anaemia and iron deficiency indicators among women in the rural Free State, South Africa
Published in South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2020
EM Jordaan, VL Van den Berg, FC Van Rooyen, CM Walsh
Results of this study suggest that there was a predominant pattern of malnutrition, characterised by overweight and obesity, high rates of abdominal obesity and unhealthy body fat percentages, as well as inflammation, among the women. These women were, therefore, at high risk for developing chronic diseases of lifestyle. Iron deficiency, iron deficiency anaemia and folate deficiency prevalence was low, which could be attributed to almost half of the women not menstruating anymore and the older median age compared with that of other studies conducted on women of childbearing age. The mandatory micronutrient fortification of certain staple foods may also have improved micronutrient status. However, the prevalence of iron deficiency may have been underestimated when ferritin was used as marker. Transferrin saturation may, in this case, give a better reflection of the prevalence of iron deficiency. Significant associations between BMI, waist circumference and body fat percentage categories and MCV, MCH and transferrin saturation could indicate that obesity is associated with poorer iron status and anaemia. A significant association was also found between elevated ferritin and elevated CRP levels.
Parental feeding knowledge, practices and Chinese children and adolescents’ weight status
Published in Children's Health Care, 2021
Li Zhang, Yaorong Zhang, Liya Qiu, Guangxing Yang, Haiyan Jiang, Mengyi Zheng, Jie Wang
It was found that rural mothers who were more inclined to agree with the statement that “eating a large amount of staple food is not good for health” were linked to a greater risk of their children being overweight (here “staple food” referred to rice, dumpling, noodle, steam bread, pickle et al). At the first glance, this finding indicated that rural mothers who held correct feeding knowledge that eating a large amount of staple food is not good for health tended to have obese children. This finding seemed to be contradictory to our common sense. This is perhaps because with lower education, rural parents may not be able to appropriately apply their feeding knowledge in practice, which resulted in a higher risk of childhood obesity. If this is the case, then educating parents to turn suitable feeding knowledge into practice is just as important as conveying healthy feeding knowledge to them.
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- Mineral
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