Dear Friends,
On my trips around the globe, I often get edible plant seeds from friends. The big challenge is to get them growing in mountainous Switzerland. Last year I succeeded in growing above named Elephant ear plants.
I believe they all carry oxalic acid in the leaves and tubers. When I chopped off the leave and washed the tubers with large quantities of water I still got an itchy feeling in the skin on the backside of my hands. This raised the question, are there any other toxins in the plant?
Which of you out there has a phytochemical profile for the above-specified plants? And who can send me some exciting recipes to prepare food from this exciting plant? Your support will be appreciated. Kind regards
Dear Willi,
I am sorry I can´t help you with your question, but I would like to mention that actually most countries do not allow to transport seeds out of their territory without special permission and furthermore, I guess Switzerland may have similar rules like EU regarding import of seeds or other plant parts from countries outside Schengen regarding plant health issues (e.g. bringing exotic diseases or pests from tropical areas to Europe). However, if you apply for a plant health certificate in the country of origin and do some disinfection treatment prior to board on the plane, it may relief the situation. Please be careful and take care :)
Cheers, Elisa
Dear Elisa. Appreciate your comments. I am quite aware of the many regulations including Nagoya protocols. You reveal a narrow perspective of reality. We are in a globalized world where people move around to earn money in other countries. They get settled there and they start to import their "homesick food". Soon retailers realize that and they import the product in large quantities. With the changing climatic conditions, some experimental farmers start to evolve new farming methods (e.g. urban farming) and to find local markets for their products.
Years ago I was up tide when I saw China transferring Maca from Peru to China. But I also remember the Chinese Gooseberry aka Kiwi success. Today we have a new perspective to consider. Agricultural research in western economies has optimized and reduced the diversity of plants for the staple diet. (the USA diet comprises 80 different plants that food technologists convert into 1000nds of new fast and convenient foods). According to the UNO the 12 most pressing global problems are Poverty, Hunger and the largest diseases. Microbiome research can now clearly demonstrate that the large diseases started in the 70ties when agricultural optimization commenced. So if we want to reduce our growing health costs we have to go back to food diversity and to increase multilateral trade with poor countries. And we have to make sure that farmers participate in the trade and not hedge funds. This will assure that we have food for a growing global population.
Dear Willi,
Thank you very much for your answer and for giving that over-all picture of the general situation. I totally agree that the development towards lower plant and food diversity as well as fast/convenient food has lead to health issues, amongst others, and we need to improve this a lot! I was just mentioning that detail about Nagoya and plant health because I tried to avoid you some trouble :) But you already know, so no need actually. Unfortunately I can´t contribute to the answer of your initial question. Wish you good luck and hope you will succeed as "experimental farmer" as you said, so that we may cultivate those plant species in Europe one day maybe :) Would be very happy to find new food items on my plate sooner or later ;)
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