Famine Foods

Famine Foods

Bob Freedman January 25, 2010.
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Email: namdeerf@gmail.com

Famine food plants are a little-known category of underutilized species. These plants are sought out in times of famine and other conditions of environmentally-induced food scarcity. Because they are adapted to some of the most extreme weather conditions Nature can create, they represent a valuable source of plant genetic material, for the development of new, affordable staple crops, for environmentally at-risk eco-zones. In addition, some of the very few famine food plants that have been analyzed show unexpectedly high nutrient values. As nutritional value  will be a base-line criterion, for identifying candidates for selection,  growth trials and breeding, further work is needed, to ascertain the nutrient composition of the large corps of  these as-yet unstudied  famine food plant species.

The existence of over 1200 species of such plants suggests, at least in theory, that it may be more cost-effective to consider improving some of these indigenous spp., rather than transplanting traditional Western crops to areas of the world where they are not environmentally compatible nor perhaps organoleptically acceptable in their potential for areas of the world at high ecological risk for famine and food scarcity.

One result of advances in the new science of organic chemistry during the 19th Century was the birth of the science of nutrition. In the 1890′s and early 1900′s, studies began to be published on the chemical composition of specific foods and their nutritive values. It is interesting (and instructive) to note that two of these early papers were devoted to Indian famine food plants. One by HOOPER (1904) and a second by two British physicians, PATON and DUNLOP (1904). Both of these papers, now over one hundred years old, remain far ahead of their time.

Throughout most of the Twentieth Century, information on plants used as famine or ‘emergency’ foods has been reported largely by ethnographers, geographers, and botanists, with occasional contributions by chemists, historians, government administrators, and in travelers’ accounts. During the last thirty-five or so years, owing to the devastating effects of drought in the Sahelian zone of Africa, awareness of famine foods and their uses has extended to disaster relief personnel, political scientists, physicians, and nutritionists: Berry-Koch(1985), BHANDARI (1974 ), Brokensha & Riley (1978), De Castro (1947, 1949,1952), Eidlitz (1969), Grivetti (1981), Irvine (1952, 1957), and Rahmato (1991).

There are more than 1200 species of documented famine food plants representing 120 or so Linnean families. The intention in building a data base of these spp. is to provide a resource for the  selection of specific plants which – because of known, or implied characteristics, e.g., previous chemical analysis, botanical family (i.e. leguminous spp.), and such factors as drought resistance – may hold promise for growth trials and experimental introduction in areas of the world at environmental risk for drought and food scarcity, or where there is limited variety and nutritional value in traditional food plant resources.

The limiting factor, in evaluating potential candidates for selection is  the  absence  of attention to the nutritive value of famine food plants – a situation which has been emphasized by several specialists: Grivetti(1981) and Longhurst (1987), with regard to wild food plants in general. Besides the early papers noted, by Hooper (ibid), and Paton & Dunlop (ibid) there is one additionally important study, of the nutritional value of famine foods, which takes on  greater significance, when placed in historical perspective. Undoubtedly the most well-known, and comprehensive study of famine food plants is the Chiu Huang Pen Ts’ao, or  ‘Salvation-in-the-midst-of-desolation- herbal,’ compiled by Chu Hsiao , the fifth son of Thai Tsu (the Huang-Wu emperor) and first published in A.D. 1406 (see Needham 1984 pp. 331, 332). Born about A.D. 1360, and made Prince of Chou, in A.D. 1378, Chu Hsiao set up what Christopher (1985) has called aptly, “famine gardens,” at Kaifeng, in Hunan Province. The Prince “experimented with the planting and utilization of more than four hundred kinds of plants, collected from fields, ditches and wildernesses. Engaging special artists (hua kung), to make pictures of each of the plants and trees, he himself set down details of all the edible parts, whether flowers, fruits, roots, stems, bark or leaves, and digested [sic] the whole into a book…” (Needham  loc. cit. p. 332). Just at the end of the Second World War, Bernard Read (1946) (with Liu Ju-Ch’iang) published their translation, titled, Famine Foods Listed In the Chiu Huang Pen Ts’so. This translation is a milestone in the history of famine food research,  as it contains annotated, modern data on the chemical composition and nutritive values of some of the plants recorded in the original Chinese compilation. It represent the first modern effort to provide nutritional profiles of famine food plants and remained unequaled, until the appearance of Dr. Omar Abdelumuti’s (1991) monumental study of famine food plants of the Sudan. This outstanding example of famine food chemical analysis is a model for future work. Another excellent example of chemical analysis of famine foods is found in Airaksinen et al. (1986), which reports on toxicity in some Finnish famine food plants. Toxicity is another important factor, in considering choices for famine food plant spp. for further development. Extensive detoxification processes reduce the cost effectiveness of the plant for human food.  Decisions regarding the choice of famine food plants can be facilitated by analytic date already available. The work of Hoppe (1958) and Wehmer (1929-1935) contain valuable – perhaps unequaled – chemical composition data for numerous plants listed in the famine food data base which is accessible on the World Wide Web page hosted by Purdue University’s Horticulture Department’s NewCrops Web site at:www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/faminefoods/ff_home.html.

With the increasingly rapid loss of plant genetic material to the combined assaults of environmental degradation and urbanization; as well as the very small number of staple crops on which the majority of the world’s population depends (Sosa 2009) there is seeming little time to waste, in investigating potentially useful plants which remain in their natural habitats. Among these, known famine plant species may provide alternatives to costly Green Revolution approaches to providing staple crops for areas of the world in greatest need of food production self-sufficiency.

REFERENCES

• Abdelmuti, Omar Mohamed Salih. 1991. Biochemical and nutritional evaluation of famine foods of the Sudan. Doctoral dissertation in Biochemistry and Nutrition. Faculty of Agriculture. Khartoum, Sudan: University of Khartoum.
• Berry-Koch, Angela. 1985. “Famine food and the process of adaptation to extreme food shortages.” An essay prepared for the Nutrition Department of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. London, England: London School of Tropical Hygiene. 9pp.
• Bhandari, M.M. 1974. “Famine foods in the Rajasthan Desert.” Economic Botany. 28:73-81. Brokensha, David & Riley, Bernard W. 1978. “Mbeere wild foods.” Paper prepared for the Symposium ‘WOMAN THE GATHERER.’ 77th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Los Angeles, California. 15 November.
• Christopher, Thomas. 1985. “The famine garden of Prince Chu Su.” Garden [New York Botanical Garden] 9:18-21 (May/June).
• De Castro, Josue, Pechnik, E., Parahim, O., Matoso, I.V., & Chaves, J.M. 1947. “Os ‘alimentos barbaros’ dos sertoes do Nordeste. (“Wild foods of the northeastern Brazilian outback.”) Arquivos Brasileiras de Nutricao 3(2):5-29. Abstracted in: Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews 18:50. also in: Trabalhos e Pesquisas do Instituto de Nutricao. Universidade do Brasil 7:75-93 (1948). Cited in: Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews 18:1191 (no abstract given).
• De Castro, Josue. 1949. Geographie de la faim. (La faim au Bresil). Les Editions Ouvrieres Economie et Humanisme.
• De Castro, Josue. 1952. The geography of hunger. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown.
• Eidlitz, Kerstin. 1969. Food and Emergency Food in the Circumpolar Area. Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensa. XXXII. Upsala, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckert AB
• Grivetti, Louis Evan. 1981. “Perspectives on dietary utilization of wild plants, nutritional status, and agricultural development.” Paper presented at International Geographical Union Commission on Rural Development. Symposium on Rural Development: Theory and Practice. Session: Nutrition and Rural Development. April 23-25.
• Hely-Hutchinson, Walter F. 1898. “Famine plants in Zululand.” Great Britain. Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information  (135):52-54.
• Hooper, David. 1904. “Analyses of Indian pot-herbs of the natural orders Amarantaceae, Chenopodiaceae, and Polygonanceae.” Agricultural Ledger (Calcutta) (6):423-434.
• Hoppe, Hans. 1958. Drogenkunde. Handbuch der Pflanzenlichen und Tierischen Rohstoffe. Hamburg, Germany: Cram, De Gruyter & Co.
• Irvine, F.R. 1952. “Supplementary and emergency food plants of West Africa.” Economic Botany 6(1):23-40.
• Irvine, F.R. 1957. “Wild and emergency foods of Australian and Tasmanian aborigines.” Oceania 23(2):113-142.
• Longhurst, Richard. 1987. “Famine foods, and nutrition: issues and opportunities for policy and research. Food and Nutrition Bulletin (Cambridge, MA: The United Nations University) 28:73-81.
• Needham, Jose[h, Lu, Gwei-djen, & Huang, Hsing-tsung. 1984 [?] Science and civillization in China. Volume 6. Biology and Biological Technology. Part 1: Botany. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
• Paton, Diarmid Noel & Dunlop, James Crawfurd. 1904. Famine foods: the nutritive value of some uncultivated foods used by Bhils during recent famines. Edinburgh, Scotland: from the Laboratory of the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Edinburgh. 27pp.
• Paton, Diarmid Noel & Dunlop, James Crawfurd. 1904. “The nutritive values of some uncultivated foods used by the Bhils during recent famines.” Agricultural Ledger (6): 37-73.
• Rahmato, Dessalegn. 1991. Famine and survival strategies: a case study from NE Ethiopia. Upsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrika-Institutet.
• Read, Bernard Emms (editor). 1946. Famine foods listed in the Chiu huang pen ts’ao [of Ting Wang Chou]: giving their identity, nutritional values and notes on their preparation. Shanghai, China: Henry Lester Institute of Medical Research. 93pp.
• Sosa, Carlos. 2009. Conservation and sustainable use of animal genetic resources www.elhadiyahia.net
• Wehmer, Carl. 1929-1935. Die Pflanzenstoffe. Botanisch-Systematisch-Bearbeitet. Phanerogamen. 3 vols. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer.