Original ArticleThe nutritional composition of African wild food plants: from compilation to utilization☆
Introduction
It has been well documented that during times of natural and man-made disasters, populations suffering from severe food shortages can become heavily reliant on wild food plants for survival (Guinard and Lemessa, 2000; Leborgne et al., 2002). This association has given rise to the notion of “famine foods” (Rahmato, 1988; World Food Programme, 1996; Chopak, 2000). This category of plant, which is generally considered as only being consumed at times of severe nutritional stress, has been neglected by operational organizations that consider it a symptom of food insecurity (Olana, 2001) and not a potential contributor to diet quality. Research organizations have also neglected wild food plants in favour of wild medicinal plants probably due to the perception that most wild food plants are of poor nutritional value. The understanding of wild food plants is further complicated as one population's famine food or wild food can in some cases be another population's staple.1 It is clear that the investigation of wild food plants is multidisciplinary, and involves: nutrition, ethnobotany, medicine, analytical chemistry, phytochemistry and anthropology (Onyechi et al., 1988; Salih et al., 1991; Kuhnlein and Turner, 1991; Martin, 1995; Grivetti and Ogle, 2000). However, most organizations specialize in only one or two of these disciplines often leading to the inadequate inclusion of others. The neglect of wild food plants by operational and research organizations is likely to be attributable to the inadequacy of information on nutritional content and subsequent misunderstanding of their potential. At a casual glance, there appears to have been a considerable amount of work undertaken investigating the nutritional value of wild food plants in Africa. For some species this misconception is propagated by the repetition of the same data through the literature over time (data recycling), creating the illusion that available information is reliable and up to date. The African Wild Harvest Project at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, undertaken in collaboration with the UK Medical Research Council Human Nutrition Research, Cambridge, was established to collect and collate information on the nutritional value of dryland African wild food plants. Unlike work undertaken on the indigenous peoples of Canada (Kuhnlein and Turner, 1991), to the knowledge of the authors, there is at this moment in time no definitive resource for quantitative information on the nutritional content of wild food plants in Africa. In addition, there are no complete guidelines for the collection and collation of such information.
It is the aim of African Wild Harvest to formulate a methodology for the collection and compilation of quantitative information on the nutritional value of dryland African wild food plants.
Section snippets
Methodology
The implementation of a comprehensive, replicable searching strategy is essential for ensuring that the literature is reviewed to the fullest possible extent. The diverse range, types and sources of information must be taken into consideration, and as much information as possible collected from all disciplines involved. In addition, the search strategy must be clearly recorded so that the history from each investigation can be traced accurately. Once a search strategy is clearly defined, it can
Species investigated
A total of 20 species from 13 families were investigated. There was a total of 103 scientific synonyms and 28 vernacular names used during the literature review (see Table 2).
Citations processed
A total of 17 700 citations for the 20 species were downloaded from six citation indices and three bibliographic sources, from nine online citation databases. Five hundred and forty of these citations inspected in the CSL were deemed to pertain to nutrition, i.e., appeared to contain quantitative nutritional information.
Many ways to say the same thing
There were over 120 scientific names for the 20 species investigated, averaging five names by which each species has previously been known. In addition, five of the species had 10 or more scientific synonyms, Kigelia africana (Lam.)Benth. having 21. Botanical nomenclature, like the science of food composition, is highly dynamic as new species are discovered and named, and when existing names change as a result of reclassification and revisions. The rules of botanical nomenclature and the
Conclusions
This work has shown that a thorough review of the literature and the complete collection of information on a particular species are an important part in researching the quantitative nutritional value of wild food plants. Such resource intensive work could discourage some researchers. However, this should not be the case as once the literature has been fully researched, the process of updating is relatively straightforward. Our method covers a considerable scope of the literature and highlights
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Stephen Davis and Brian Stannard, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, for assistance in preparing this paper.
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This research was funded by the Nestlé UK Charitable Trust.