The consumption of legumes/pulses and other whole foods is so minimal in developing countries. What are the factors behind? I know consumption of foods from these categories of foods has got numerous health benefits, particularly in preventing lifestyle complications like cancer, obesity and heart disease.
I think that cost is one of the biggest issue in the utilization of grain legumes in developing world diets is cost in a gross sense.
The high yield but low quality of cereals makes them a choice when economic resources are limited.
This was the first concentration of the so called Green revolution wheat, rice and maize. Effort in legumes never came close for developing areas.
When health potential is incorporated into the analysis the choice would be a proportion that would include the grain legume at 20% but if the people do not have the spare money they will go low cost even if the results are lowered diet quality and health.
We need to teach people a better appreciation of the real economics of these choices and the value of health has for people and their lives.
To foster a better appreciation of this we need to teach human nutrition in the way a farmer maximizes his feed ration. Animals on formulated feed are generally much healthier than free range humans in both developed and developing economies. Ironic don't you think!
Thank you Dr. Paul, That makes sense for developing world. My question was about the consumption of the same crops in developed (Western) countries. They barely consume these crops and the health is deteriorating. I wanted to know where the gap is? Is it public awareness? is it the cost? is it availability? Is it choice of the consumers?
The developed world has some problems with the flatulence associated with pulses. This goes to the extreme of having medication over the counter to counter the escapes. The sugars raffinose and stachyose are some of the principals in this explosive issue. In the developing world beans need a better publicity and image. Again the medical information on their benefits is not optimized and people are no longer cooking as in generations past. A lot of education effort needed.
I compliment Mr Tadesse for raising a good question. Dr.Hepperly has rightly answered the question.The cost and availability go hand in hand like demand and supply.When availability is less the cost will increase and poor people will not be able to purchase the pulses.In the recent past ( in the last 8 years)India Imported pulses in the range of 2-4 million tonnes per year to meet the domestic demand,Because of the high yielding rice-wheat cropping system spread in the North ,pulses shifted to south and central India.At the current level of production and prices it has become increasing ly difficult for poor people to purchase pulses .As incomes are increasing ,the other sections of the society are creating more demand for pulses.At least in India there is sufficient awareness of the nutrition quality of pulses as it is staple food along with rice and wheat in a predominantly vegetarian country.In the last 15 years there was three to fourfold increase in support price (Government fixed price) for pulse crops.India is making every effort to increase the production from current level of around 18 million tonnes to at least 25 million tonnes by 2025.Still the minimum nutritional requirement of 80 g/ capita/day may not be met.But the gap will be met through increasing production and consumption of fish poultry and meat.
Because of non vegeterian peaple are more in developed nation. they meet the protein by eating more non-veg items.
Inter alia, cheap meat price in the western countries offsets the consumption of pulses and wholegrains as a source of protein. Developed world also has high per capita income which puts the 'pulses and wholegrains' under inferior commodities resulting in less consumption.
If people in developed countries would appreciate the health and vigor associated with upping their legume consumption it would be helpful. In addition we seldom teach concerning how the legume in association with our food system greatly reduces energetic and environmental issues associated with our agricultural systems.
About 50% of the all cereal centric production in developed countries can be put into Nitrogen fertilization. Very energy intensive and with significant environment impacts.
If a consumer would not do it for saving cost could they do it to save energy, environment and the planet? I do not know but informed choices might change. Undoubted the production of factory meat farms is the most inefficient compared to direct consumption of a vegetarian balanced diet.
The sickness of factory animal farming cannot produce the health that robust use of more naturally produced foods can. Many of the developed World most pressing health issues would be addressed by balanced plant based nonrefined diets. Unfortunately both the developing and developed world seem not to want to modify a meat emphasis.
I believe education is the way forward.
Recently Flint Michigan used polluted river water to save money from using the Healthy water from Lake Huron. The tainted water in ancient plumbing system produced an endemic of lead poisoning which the water saving can never repay.
Reducing cost by sacrificing value is never a good overall choice. Legume based systems are superior input chemical based food system. The food is superior because of legumes and their high nutritional and health nature and they are double winner because they reduce the negatives of inputs by reducing them and the legume symbiosis increase the system quality by the improve in the soil resource.
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