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Cassava crisis: the deadly food that doubles as a vital Venezuelan crop (2017)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- adrian_mrd 8y agoIs Cassava flour expensive in the countries where it is grown? In Western Europe and Australia, it seems to be priced at approximately $9 AUD / €6 per kilogram of flour and only available from selected specialty retailers or health food stores. Given it is such an important staple for 700 million people worldwide, made me wonder whether its 'uniqueness' attracts a significant cost addition. Or maybe the flour is (relatively) expensive, and not the tubers or edible parts of the plant?
- jamesrcole 8y ago> In ... Australia ... only available from selected specialty retailers or health food stores. It can be found in the major supermarkets https://shop.coles.com.au/a/a-qld-fnq-townsville-aitke/everything/search/Tapioca https://shop.coles.com.au/a/a-qld-fnq-townsville-aitke/every... https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/search/products?searchTerm=Tapioca https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/search/products?searchTer...
- phyzome 8y agoIt's probably a lot cheaper when called "tapioca" than when called "cassava", at least in North America. :-P
- Pfhreak 8y agoExcept "tapioca" in NA can also mean "sago", which is a totally different plant.
- phyzome 8y agoInteresting, good to know! I don't think I've encountered that before.
- adrian_mrd 8y agoI am confused by the difference between Tapioca and Cassava. The article doesn’t make this clear... and yeah, I can Wikipedia it ;)
- phyzome 8y agoAs far as I can tell it's just a different common name.
- adrian_mrd 8y agoSort of. Of the links you provided only one of them - at Coles New World! - is for Cassava* Flour: https://shop.coles.com.au/a/a-qld-fnq-townsville-aitke/product/bobs-red-mill-whole-tapioca-flour https://shop.coles.com.au/a/a-qld-fnq-townsville-aitke/produ... and online. I’ve never seen it at my local Coles or Woolies (or Aldis, or Foodland, or IGA, etc) The others are Tapioca starch or other products- not the same as flour. * and even then it is called Tapioca Flour so may not be the same thing as Cassava Flour. It is some times difficult to distinguish between Tapioca (starch-heavy?) and Cassava (starch-moderate?)
- markdown 8y agoWhy are the products labelled Tapioca Flour and Cassava Flour different? It's the same tuber from the same plant, isn't it?
- Anarch157a 8y agoHere in Brazil, we have two kinds of flour from manioc, a very coarse one used in Farofa and in a taco-shell like crunchy thing we call Tapioca, the other is a super thin one called Polvilho, used in biscuits and cheese bread. maybe they're related to the ones you know.
- adrian_mrd 8y agoThanks, I think the one commonly labelled Cassava Flour (at least in Australia) is the Povilho variety. Maybe the Tapioca vs Povilho difference refers to the bitter vs sweet varieties of the Cassava plant?
- jamesrcole 8y agoYou missed the "arrowroot" flour, which is actually tapioca flour https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/226010/mc-kenzie-s-arrowroot-tapioca-flour https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/226010/mc-... There seems to be a bit of disagreement out there but most of the things I've read say the flour and starch are the same thing.
- bfred_it 8y agoSome things may be cheap and common in a place, but an exotic delicacy in others, so the market adjusts.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoOften it's "ethnic" foods that are expensive, but there's an interesting inverse with chicken feet. In the west, you can get Chicken feet for just about free, I think they're like $2 per kg at my supermarket. In China though, they're a delicacy and quite expensive.
- mahesh_rm 8y agoIt is amongst the cheapest edible things you can find here in Colombia, and assume across all South America, but then again, price of agricultural goods here is more or less close to zero if compared to price of them same goods when imported in North America / Europe / Australia.
- adrian_mrd 8y agoInteresting. Is it easy to purchase Cassava Flour? (as opposed to the root vegetable or other Cassava products like Tapioca pearls).
- Anarch157a 8y agoHere in Brazil you can fill a shopping cart with the stuff in ant Carrefour. For restaurants, specially the ones that serve feijoada or barbecue*, is not hard to find it in 50kg sacs. Manioc flour is the main ingredient in farofa, an essential side dish for both feijoada and bbq.
- htmk 8y agoAnd it's delicious in all sorts of dishes.
- epx 8y agoHere in Brazil it is very cheap, because it grows everywhere. Used to plant in the backyard when I was a child.
- serverpunch 8y agoVenezuela has the highest oil reserves in the world. It also has relatively less population that can be per capita richer than many developed countries. Yet here is a country that is grappling with basic food supplies. Everything that can go wrong seems to go wrong with this beautiful country.
- Symmetry 8y agoThere's a great book, The Secret of Our Success, about many things including how humans have adapted to many environments and Manioc is a fascinating example in that. If you just soak Manioc until it no longer tastes bitter you'll still be slowly poisoning yourself with SCN–. You have to soak it for as long as your ancestors did if you want to live to old age. And somehow people figured this out and managed to avoid taking shortcuts despite not understanding the reasons for what they did. More precise copying between generations, in both genes and culture, allows the accumulation of more total complexity though change comes more slowly.
- perl4ever 8y agoReminds me of how I recently learned via the Internet that cooking kidney beans with a slow cooker could be hazardous.
- goda90 8y agoToday I learned. I guess it'll be the instant pot or stovetop for all dried beans from now on.
- Gustomaximus 8y agoGoogled this as I never knew either. Basically red kidney beans need to be cooked at greater than 100c for 10min to remove a toxin. Not all slow cookers reach this temp, hence the issue.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoThis is only for dried beans, canned beans are pre-cooked. I used to be really paranoid about canned kidney beans and getting poisoned for a long time. Then I discovered that the rule only applies to dried beans, and fresh I guess as well.
- pythagorus 8y agoI warned you about beans.
- colinhmit 8y agoThe star of my favorite "mystery illness" article: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-curse-of-konzo/ https://www.damninteresting.com/the-curse-of-konzo/ “Polio outbreak. Memba District. 38 cases. Reflexes increased.”
- chris_mc 8y ago> crisis > The last reported fatal cases of cassava poisoning occurred in February 2017. Crisis? This article is so over the top it's not even funny.
- adrian_mrd 8y agoThe article is from June 2017, and it does state that “At least 28 people have died as a result of eating bitter cassava”, but the word ‘crisis’ - at least referring to any major problem outside of Venezuala - does seem a little bit hyperbolic.
- chris_mc 8y agoI didn't pay attention to the date, so perhaps I jumped the gun here declaring it a non-issue.
- mschuster91 8y agoIt is very well a crisis if people die en masse because they have to resort to (potentially) toxic black market foods.
- _bxg1 8y agoApple seeds also contain small amounts of Cyanide. A couple seeds won't hurt you, but I heard a story about a guy that roasted them like pumpkin seeds and died after eating a couple handfuls.