7 ms·

The rise of Africa’s super vegetables

75 points by danboarder 11y ago

unwind 11y ago
Interesting. The article didn't try (as far as I saw) to say anything about the flavor of nighthade, which would have been interesting (as a Northern European, I have no idea if I can source this locally). The Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_nightshade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_nightshade) said: The leaves also contain high levels of vitamin A, B, and C, and phenolics and alkaloids, including cocaine, quinine, nicotine, and morphine which was also interesting. I wonder if those levels are high enough to make the plant controversial, didn't do any further research.
- kedean 11y ago
  The article does mention a few times that all of the vegetables in question are dark leafy greens, so they are extremely bitter. That's why so much effort is being put into recipe research, they aren't particularly palatable veggies on their own.
  - beat 11y ago
    Palatable is also a cultural bias. You like familiar flavors and dislike unfamiliar flavors, generally. (I sometimes sum this up as "Asians ferment soybeans and Europeans think it's disgusting. Europeans ferment milk and Asians think it's disgusting.") One big problem I've noticed is that American tastes are so strongly driven by junk food and highly processed factory products that actual fresh vegetables taste alien and weird.
netcan 11y ago
There seems to be a significant negative side effect to domestication, and then super-domestication of modern breed optimization and/or genetic engineering. It kind of makes sense. Whether improvement happens slowly as farmers turn some wild grass into maize with a cultivar 100X the size of a wild variety or happens rapidly as modern breeders optimize for traits on a quick cycle, domestication is narrow optimization. The more you optimize a sales team for sales, the more other things (like knowing what they're selling) de-optimize. Greyhounds are optimized exclusively for speed. So are thoroughbred horses. These breeds are fast, but often have issues with every other trait. Health, longevity, personality. They're not social compared to a foxhound, trainable compared to a labrador, strong compared to a husky, etc. They are also worse on all these scales than a wolf or a mutt, who have not been optimized for any specific trait. Modern vegetables we have optimized them for ease of cultivation and shelf life. Modern tomatoes ripen all at once, so they're easy to pick and they last 10X longer, to reduce spoilage. Most taste pretty bad (comparatively), because they have not been optimized for taste. My point is that (A) we don't really have a very solid understanding of what makes green vegetables healthful and (B) even if we did we are not optimizing for healthiness. (C) In an optimization environment, not optimizing = de-optimizing. TLDR: Maybe the advantage of traditional greens, or part of the advantage is that these are (currently) non commercial breeds that haven't been "improved" yet.
- gadders 11y ago
  >>Greyhounds are optimized exclusively for speed. So are thoroughbred horses. These breeds are fast, but often have issues with every other trait. Health, longevity, personality. I don't think you have come across many greyhounds. They are by and large lovely dogs with a great personality.
  - netcan 11y ago
    I accept that. Maybe it was a badly chosen example.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 11y ago
    Greyhounds tend to be more hyper than other breeds which is generally considered a negative personality trait. They can still be great dogs, but so can the vast majority of dogs out there. The point is breeders cared less about hyper than they did speed.
- has2k1 11y ago
  Unless you know completely what you are doing on the gene level, if a species can have more than one desirable trait(phenotype) then it is a gamble to expect that optimizing for one will not diminish any of the rest. Somehow as a society we understand this, the team sports we create require a blend of abilities that are nearly impossible to find in a single individual -- we find this out after the fact when we get good at optimizing the teams for winning. In folklore/fiction the superheroes are only optimized on a limited set of abilities or if they are too super we throw in "an Achilles heel"/"a Kryptonite".
  - netcan 11y ago
    That's pretty much always. We never know exactly everything we are doing at the gene level (when breeding) and food plants always have more than one desirable trait.
- 11y ago
avighnay 11y ago
These very same plants used to be very common in Indian cuisine too... Solanum nigrum - http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Black%20Nightshade.html http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Black%20Nightsh... Was a common home cooked item in Tamil Nadu (South India) called Manathakali Keerai in Tamil Vigna unguiculata - called Karamani in Tamil, is also a very common vegetable in home cuisine of Tamil Nadu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oifwbfSrKWA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oifwbfSrKWA Corchorus olitorius - http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Nalta%20Jute.html http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Nalta%20Jute.ht... called Punakku, however is used only as traditional cattle feed and considered lowly for human consumption for unknown reasons and is a slang used to insult a person for foolishness or low IQ Amaranthus - Mollai Keerai Moringa oleifera - Murungai, very popular and can be seen grown in most homes in rural/semi-urban Tamilnadu, and very popular in Sambhar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKT--cbBmhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKT--cbBmhk
- zkar 11y ago
  Nice done connection references to the Indian subcontinent. Appreciate the links.
ohmshalalala 11y ago
Maine is the closest point to Africa from the US Lobstah + African Nightshade
beat 11y ago
Seed preservation and keeping gene banks is critical to the long-term food system. As the article points out, agribusiness is good for yield and cost, but bad for diversity. And lack of diversity leads to drastic collapse.
giltleaf 11y ago
The agroecological benefits for this type of research are astounding. If you look at pictures of teosinte (O.G. corn) and compare it to modern varieties, the gains in terms of grain size (for feed corn), productivity, and resilience are astounding. Granted, those gains come from 1000's of years of agricultural evolution and a relatively new agro-industrial research partnership, but the fact remains that if we were to support agroecological solutions, like researching Africa's "super vegetables," the net benefits for our global food systems are potentially as important as the Green Revolution. Edit: However, no matter what happens, it's important to always frame this research in terms of what people and communities, not businesses, actually want, and to keep in mind local food sovereignty.
WoMaameTwe 11y ago
Hmm Big Deal.! Kenya, the poster child in this case has been fully infiltrated with genetically engineered seeds and crops. I dont see the native or indigenous value of these crops in a place like that. If you want very native plants you might have to move into harsher areas. Sudan, Congo, Somalia etc
jqm 11y ago
I didn't know one could eat Solanums. I was always under the impression that nightshade (and the foliage of most members of the Solanaceae family) were just about all poisonous to some extent. From Wikipedia: "The species most commonly called nightshade in North America and Britain is Solanum dulcamara, also called bittersweet or woody nightshade. Its foliage and egg-shaped red berries are poisonous, the active principle being solanine, which can cause convulsions and death if taken in large doses. The black nightshade (S. nigrum) is also generally considered poisonous, but its fully ripened fruit and foliage are cooked and eaten in some areas." This family also contains a fair amount of psychoactive members most of which are also poisonous at the right dose. (Tobacco and Jimson Weed for instance and in fact some Solanums...http://sarahannelawless.com/2010/05/10/solanum/ http://sarahannelawless.com/2010/05/10/solanum/ ). But.. there is nightshade, for sale in the market in the picture. My world view on Solanums has been shattered.

75 points by danboarder 11y ago

Interesting. The article didn't try (as far as I saw) to say anything about the flavor of nighthade, which would have been interesting (as a Northern European, I have no idea if I can source this locally). The Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_nightshade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_nightshade) said: The leaves also contain high levels of vitamin A, B, and C, and phenolics and alkaloids, including cocaine, quinine, nicotine, and morphine which was also interesting. I wonder if those levels are high enough to make the plant controversial, didn't do any further research.

kedean 11y ago
The article does mention a few times that all of the vegetables in question are dark leafy greens, so they are extremely bitter. That's why so much effort is being put into recipe research, they aren't particularly palatable veggies on their own.
- beat 11y ago
  Palatable is also a cultural bias. You like familiar flavors and dislike unfamiliar flavors, generally. (I sometimes sum this up as "Asians ferment soybeans and Europeans think it's disgusting. Europeans ferment milk and Asians think it's disgusting.") One big problem I've noticed is that American tastes are so strongly driven by junk food and highly processed factory products that actual fresh vegetables taste alien and weird.

netcan 11y ago

There seems to be a significant negative side effect to domestication, and then super-domestication of modern breed optimization and/or genetic engineering. It kind of makes sense. Whether improvement happens slowly as farmers turn some wild grass into maize with a cultivar 100X the size of a wild variety or happens rapidly as modern breeders optimize for traits on a quick cycle, domestication is narrow optimization. The more you optimize a sales team for sales, the more other things (like knowing what they're selling) de-optimize. Greyhounds are optimized exclusively for speed. So are thoroughbred horses. These breeds are fast, but often have issues with every other trait. Health, longevity, personality. They're not social compared to a foxhound, trainable compared to a labrador, strong compared to a husky, etc. They are also worse on all these scales than a wolf or a mutt, who have not been optimized for any specific trait. Modern vegetables we have optimized them for ease of cultivation and shelf life. Modern tomatoes ripen all at once, so they're easy to pick and they last 10X longer, to reduce spoilage. Most taste pretty bad (comparatively), because they have not been optimized for taste. My point is that (A) we don't really have a very solid understanding of what makes green vegetables healthful and (B) even if we did we are not optimizing for healthiness. (C) In an optimization environment, not optimizing = de-optimizing. TLDR: Maybe the advantage of traditional greens, or part of the advantage is that these are (currently) non commercial breeds that haven't been "improved" yet.

gadders 11y ago
>>Greyhounds are optimized exclusively for speed. So are thoroughbred horses. These breeds are fast, but often have issues with every other trait. Health, longevity, personality. I don't think you have come across many greyhounds. They are by and large lovely dogs with a great personality.
- netcan 11y ago
  I accept that. Maybe it was a badly chosen example.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 11y ago
  Greyhounds tend to be more hyper than other breeds which is generally considered a negative personality trait. They can still be great dogs, but so can the vast majority of dogs out there. The point is breeders cared less about hyper than they did speed.
has2k1 11y ago
Unless you know completely what you are doing on the gene level, if a species can have more than one desirable trait(phenotype) then it is a gamble to expect that optimizing for one will not diminish any of the rest. Somehow as a society we understand this, the team sports we create require a blend of abilities that are nearly impossible to find in a single individual -- we find this out after the fact when we get good at optimizing the teams for winning. In folklore/fiction the superheroes are only optimized on a limited set of abilities or if they are too super we throw in "an Achilles heel"/"a Kryptonite".
- netcan 11y ago
  That's pretty much always. We never know exactly everything we are doing at the gene level (when breeding) and food plants always have more than one desirable trait.
11y ago

avighnay 11y ago

These very same plants used to be very common in Indian cuisine too... Solanum nigrum - http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Black%20Nightshade.html http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Black%20Nightsh... Was a common home cooked item in Tamil Nadu (South India) called Manathakali Keerai in Tamil Vigna unguiculata - called Karamani in Tamil, is also a very common vegetable in home cuisine of Tamil Nadu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oifwbfSrKWA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oifwbfSrKWA Corchorus olitorius - http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Nalta%20Jute.html http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Nalta%20Jute.ht... called Punakku, however is used only as traditional cattle feed and considered lowly for human consumption for unknown reasons and is a slang used to insult a person for foolishness or low IQ Amaranthus - Mollai Keerai Moringa oleifera - Murungai, very popular and can be seen grown in most homes in rural/semi-urban Tamilnadu, and very popular in Sambhar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKT--cbBmhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKT--cbBmhk

zkar 11y ago
Nice done connection references to the Indian subcontinent. Appreciate the links.

ohmshalalala 11y ago

Maine is the closest point to Africa from the US Lobstah + African Nightshade

beat 11y ago

Seed preservation and keeping gene banks is critical to the long-term food system. As the article points out, agribusiness is good for yield and cost, but bad for diversity. And lack of diversity leads to drastic collapse.

giltleaf 11y ago

The agroecological benefits for this type of research are astounding. If you look at pictures of teosinte (O.G. corn) and compare it to modern varieties, the gains in terms of grain size (for feed corn), productivity, and resilience are astounding. Granted, those gains come from 1000's of years of agricultural evolution and a relatively new agro-industrial research partnership, but the fact remains that if we were to support agroecological solutions, like researching Africa's "super vegetables," the net benefits for our global food systems are potentially as important as the Green Revolution. Edit: However, no matter what happens, it's important to always frame this research in terms of what people and communities, not businesses, actually want, and to keep in mind local food sovereignty.

WoMaameTwe 11y ago

Hmm Big Deal.! Kenya, the poster child in this case has been fully infiltrated with genetically engineered seeds and crops. I dont see the native or indigenous value of these crops in a place like that. If you want very native plants you might have to move into harsher areas. Sudan, Congo, Somalia etc

jqm 11y ago

I didn't know one could eat Solanums. I was always under the impression that nightshade (and the foliage of most members of the Solanaceae family) were just about all poisonous to some extent. From Wikipedia: "The species most commonly called nightshade in North America and Britain is Solanum dulcamara, also called bittersweet or woody nightshade. Its foliage and egg-shaped red berries are poisonous, the active principle being solanine, which can cause convulsions and death if taken in large doses. The black nightshade (S. nigrum) is also generally considered poisonous, but its fully ripened fruit and foliage are cooked and eaten in some areas." This family also contains a fair amount of psychoactive members most of which are also poisonous at the right dose. (Tobacco and Jimson Weed for instance and in fact some Solanums...http://sarahannelawless.com/2010/05/10/solanum/ http://sarahannelawless.com/2010/05/10/solanum/ ). But.. there is nightshade, for sale in the market in the picture. My world view on Solanums has been shattered.