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Andrea Pieroni, PhD
Lisa Leimar Price, PhD
Editors
Eating and Healing
Traditional Food As Medicine

%
Pre-publication together face health problems related to
REVIEWS, the simplification of diets and erosion of
biocultural diversity. The consequences
COMMENTARIES, can be understood increasingly from
EVALUATIONS. . . insights into functional health benefits
offered by food and dietary supple­
/ / Tpating and Healing explores the con-ments beyond basic nutrition, includ­
Hj temporary significance of the ing hypoglycemic, antioxidant, immu-
primordial recognition by humans that nostimulant, and antibiotic activities.
food and medicine represent a contin­ Understanding of traditional practices
uum rather than the artificial categoriesprovides health-relevant information for
typically imposed in Western science. populations adapting to rapid change in
By bringing together the experiences of developing countries as well as for peo­
researchers working with traditional pop­ple in industrial countries. Here the mul­
ulations around the world, it demon­ tidisciplinary approaches and focus of
strates both the universality and the con­
the authors on both biological and cul­
tinued relevance of this relationship. Intural components of foods as medicines
drawing on current research and meth­ offer a valuable basis for promoting pos­
odologies at the interface between the itive behaviors through food culture.
biological and social sciences, the au­ That traditional systems once lost are
thors offer exciting new insights into anhard to re-create underlines the impera­
underexplored theme in the ethnobo- tive for the kind of documentation, com­
tanical literature and provide a timely pilation, and dissemination of eroding
focus of theoretical and practical im­ knowledge of biocultural diversity rep­
portance linking human health with the resented by this volume."
conservation and use of biodiversity.
Several chapters specifically ad­ Timothy Johns, PhD
dress issues tied to global change. Ru­ Professor of Human Nutrition,
ral subsistence and urban populations McGill University

iflUe
More pre-publication
REVIEWS, COMMENTARIES, EVALUATIONS . . .

//H P h is important volume showcases phasize the importance of wild foods in

A the convergence of medicinal traditional pharmacopoeias and diets
and culinary practices. The theme of and link the erosion of that knowledge
overlapping contexts of plant use that to problems of diminished biodiversity
emerged two or so decades ago contin­ in the modern era. A minor but impor­
ues to intrigue anthropologists, bota­ tant theme illustrates the gendered na­
nists, and ecologists. These and other ture of botanical knowledge as reflected
scholars have come to appreciate that in asymmetrical use patterns of certain
whereas Western scholarly and clinical plants. Issues of globalization are ap­
traditions have treated food and medi­ parent as well in discussions of sour­
cine as discrete domains, their margins cing for the contemporary, primarily
are porous indeed, especially as re­ Western, nutraceutical and herbal prod­
vealed in the ways that indigenous ucts industry. Publication of Eating and
peoples understand human-plant rela­ Healing coincides with a growing inter­
tions. The contributions represent vari­ est in the healthful qualities of foods
ous disciplinary perspectives and illus­ among both the Western scientific and
trate the rich diversity of cultural the lay communities. Scholars as well
constructions and social negotiations as popular consumers of food knowl­
of foods and medicines in traditional edge will be nourished by insights
populations from all continents. Sev­ gained from this book."
eral contributors cast their work in the
frame of ethnopharmacology by link­ Nina L. Etkin, PhD
ing medical ethnography to the biol­ Professor, Department of Anthropology,
ogy of therapeutic action. Others em­ University of Hawaii

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Traditional Food As Medicine
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 Eating and Healing
Traditional Food As Medicine

Andrea Pieroni, PhD

Lisa Leimar Price, PhD
Editors

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This book has been published solely for educational purposes and is not intended to substitute
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eating and healing : traditional food as medicine / Andrea Pieroni, Lisa Leimar Price, editors,
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-56022-982-7 (he. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-56022-982-9 (he. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56022-983-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-56022-983-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Medicinal plants. 2. Diet therapy. 3. Ethnobotany. 4. Traditional medicine. 5. Wild plants,
Edible—Therapeutic use.
[DNLM: 1. Diet Therapy. 2. Medicine, Traditional. 3. Plants, Edible. 4. Plants, Medicinal.
WB 400 E l4 2005] l. Pieroni, Andrea. II. Price, Lisa Leimar.
RS164.E26 2005
615'.321—dc22
2005009084
 CONTENTS

About the Editors xi

Contributors xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
Copyright Acknowledgments xviii
Introduction 1
Andrea Pieroni
Lisa Leimar Price
Asia 3
Europe 4
North America 5
The Caribbean 5
South America 6
Africa 7
Chapter 1. Edible Wild Plants As Food and As Medicine:
Reflections on Thirty Years of Fieldwork 11
Louis E. Grivetti
Introduction 11
Genesis 11
Three Decades of Ethnobotanical Research 19
Reflections and Potential Research Areas 29
Coda 34
Chapter 2. Tibetan Foods and Medicines: Antioxidants
As Mediators of High-Altitude Nutritional Physiology 39
Patrick L. Owen
Introduction 39
Adaptations to Altitude 41
Oxidative Stress and Antioxidants 42
Tibetan High-Altitude Food Systems 45
Tibetan Medicine 49
Summary 53
Chapter 3. Wild Food Plants in Farming Environments
with Special Reference to Northeast Thailand, Food
As Functional and Medicinal, and the Social Roles
of Women 65
Lisa Leimar Price

Introduction 65
Wild Plant Foods in the Farming Environment 66
Women’s Roles, Women’s Work, and Women’s Knowledge 71
Consumption and Nutrition 74
Overlaps: Medicinal and Functional Food 77
Medicinal and Functional Food: Wild Plants of Northeast
Thailand 79
Gathered Food Plants of Northeast Thailand with Medicinal
Value 81
Investigations of Wild Plant Foods As Functional/Medicinal
Foods in Thailand 88
Multiple-Use Value, Rarity, and Privatization 89
Conclusions 91

Chapter 4. Functional Foods or Food Medicines?

On the Consumption of Wild Plants Among Albanians
and Southern Italians in Lucania 101
Andrea Pieroni
Cassandra L. Quave

Introduction 101
Ethnographic Background 103
Field Methods 106
Wild Food and Medicinal Plants in Lucania 107
Pharmacology of Wild Functional Foods Consumed
in Southern Italy 121
Conclusion 123
Chapter 5. Digestive Beverages As a Medicinal Food
in a Cattle-Farming Community in Northern Spain
(Campoo, Cantabria) 131
Manuel Pardo de Santayana
Elia San Miguel
Ramon Morales
Introduction 131
Changes in Food and Health Habits and Conditions 135
Medicinal Food: Digestive Beverages 141
Conclusions 149

Chapter 6. “The Forest and the Seaweed” : Gitga’at

Seaweed, Traditional Ecological Knowledge,
and Community Survival 153
Nancy J. Turner
Helen Clifton
Introduction 153
Seaweed Use Worldwide 156
Gitga’at Seaweed Use 157
The Forest and the Seaweed 166
Back Home in Hartley Bay 167
Conclusion 175

Chapter 7. Medicinal Herb Quality in the United States:

Bridging Perspectives with Chinese Medical Theory 179
Craig A. Hassel
Christopher A. Hafner
Renne Soberg
Jeff Adelmann
Context from a Biomedical Perspective 179
Context from a Chinese Medical Theory Perspective 182
Dilemma of “Integrating” Two Divergent Epistemologies 188
Founding a Medicinal Herb Network 189
Chapter 8. Balancing the System: Humoral Medicine
and Food in the Commonwealth of Dominica 197
Marsha B. Quinlan
Robert J. Quinlan
Introduction 197
Setting 199
Methods 200
Results and Discussion 202
Conclusion 211

Chapter 9. Medicinal Foods in Cuba: Promoting Health

in the Household 213
Gabriele Volpato
Daimy Godinez
Introduction 213
Results and Discussion 214
Conclusions 230

Chapter 10. Healthy Fish: Medicinal and Recommended

Species in the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest Coast
(Brazil) 237
Alpina Begossi
Natalia Hanazaki
Rossano M. Ramos
Introduction 237
Methods 239
Results and Discussion 239
Conclusions 247

Chapter 11. Edible and Healing Plants in the Ethnobotany

of Native Inhabitants of the Amazon and Atlantic Forest
Areas of Brazil 251
Natalia Hanazaki
Nivaldo Peroni
Alpina Begossi
Introduction , 251
Study Site and Methods 253
Results and Discussion 256
 Conclusions 263
Appendix 263

Chapter 12. Food Medicines in the Bolivian Andes

(Apillapampa, Cochabamba Department) 273
Ina Vandebroek
Sabino Sanca
Introduction 273
Study Area 274
Ethnographic Data 275
Methodology 276
Results and Discussion 277
Conclusion 294

Chapter 13. Gathering of Wild Plant Foods with Medicinal

Use in a Mapuche Community of Northwest Patagonia 297
Ana H. Ladio
Introduction 297
Study Area 301
Methods 302
Results 305
Discussion 315

Chapter 14. Dietary and Medicinal Use of Traditional

Herbs Among the Luo of Western Kenya 323
Charles Ogoye-Ndegwa
Jens Aagaard-Hansen
Introduction 323
Materials and Methods 326
Results 328
Discussion 338
Conclusion 340

Chapter 15. Ethnomycology in Africa, with Particular

Reference to the Rain Forest Zone of South Cameroon 345
Thomas W. Kuyper
Introduction 345
Mycophilia versus Mycophobia 346
 Overview of Mushroom Use in Africa 347
Mushroom Knowledge and Utilization by Bantu
and Bagyeli in South Cameroon 349
Mushrooms: Meat of the Poor 353

Chapter 16. Aspects of Food Medicine

and Ethnopharmacology in Morocco 357
Mohamed Eddouks
Introduction 357
Food Medicine 358
Phytotherapy 368
Conclusions 376

Index 383
 ABOUT THE EDITORS

Andrea Pieroni, PhD, is an ethnobotanist/pharmacognosist and Lec­

turer in Pharmacognosy at the School of Pharmacy of the University
of Bradford, United Kingdom. He is also part-time associate profes­
sor in the Department of Social Sciences at the Wageningen Univer­
sity in the Netherlands. Currently he is the scientific coordinator of a
European Union-funded research project dealing with a circum-
Mediterranean ethnobotanical study on wild and neglected plants for
food and medicine. He is a member of the Board of the International
Society for Ethnopharmacology and of the International Society of
Ethnobiology, and has authored numerous scientific articles and
books in this field. Dr. Pieroni’s present research focuses on tradition­
ally gathered wild food and medicinal plants in the Mediterranean.
Lisa Leimar Price, PhD, is an anthropologist and associate profes­
sor in the Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, the
Netherlands. She has been a Rockefeller Fellow for Social Scientists
in Agriculture, a Ford Foundation Fellow, and a Fulbright Fellow.
Prior to joining Wageningen University, she was a senior scientist
at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. She
has undertaken strategic farm level research throughout Asia and has
served as a consultant on gender in research for the World Bank,
the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the International
Rice Research Institute. She is the author of numerous publications
on wild plant foods and ethnoscience. Dr. Price specializes in gender
studies, agrobiodiversity, natural resource management, and ethno­
science.

XI
 CONTRIBUTORS

Jens Aagaard-Hansen has a double background as anthropologist

and medical doctor. In addition to his 13 years of clinical work and
specialization as a general practitioner, he has been involved with ap­
plied medical anthropology, cross-disciplinary research manage­
ment, and research capacity strengthening in Africa and Asia for the
past 11 years. He has wide experience in research, consultant work,
and teaching.
Jeff Adelmann (The Herb Man) is a medicinal herb grower/producer
operating out of Farmington, Minnesota. He has significant botanical
expertise and experience in plants used by diverse cultures. He coor­
dinates plant propagation and species documentation for the Medici­
nal Herb Network and is a member of the Organic Herb Producers
Cooperative.
Alpina Begossi is a researcher in human ecology, fisheries ecology,
and ethnobiology, and lectures in human ecology at the Graduate
Group in Ecology, UNICAMP, Campinas, S. P. Brazil. She has been
doing research for about 20 years on the Atlantic Forest coast and in
the Brazilian Amazon.
Helen Clifton is an elder of the Gitga’at Nation of Hartley Bay, Brit­
ish Columbia. Her late husband, Chief Johnny Clifton (Wah-
moodmx), was born at the seaweed camp at Princess Royal Island,
and Helen has been harvesting seaweed there since she was a young
woman, learning about the old ways of seaweed harvesting from her
mother-in-law, Lucille Clifton, and other elders of previous genera­
tions. A fluent speaker of Sm’algyax (Tsimshian language), she has
participated in and witnessed the changes in plant resource harvest­
ing and processing for over five decades.
Mohamed Eddouks is a phytopharmacologist/physiologist and pro­
fessor at Moulay Ismail University, Faculty of Sciences and Tech­
niques, Errachidia. He is also the research director of UFR Physiology
of the Nutrition and Endocrine Pharmacology. His research focuses on
xiii
X IV EATING AND HEALING

phytopharmacology and pathophysiology of diabetes mellitus and me­

dicinal plants in Morocco.
Daimy Godinez has a degree in biological sciences from the Univer­
sity of Santiago de Cuba and a master’s degree in plant taxonomy
from the University of La Habana. She holds a research position in
the Biodiversity Division of the CIMAC (Centro de Investigaciones
de Medio Ambiente de Camagtiey), a research center of the Cuban
Academy of Sciences. She specializes in management and conserva­
tion of Cuban biodiversity and related ethnobotanical themes.
Louis E. Grivetti is a geographer trained in nutrition science. He is
professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis. He and
his students have conducted research on edible wild plants in Africa
(Sahel states and eastern Botswana), Asia (northern Thailand), and
the Americas (Southeast Asian immigrant urban gardens).
Christopher A. Hafner has over 20 years experience as a fully li­
censed and accredited practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
He now practices at Crocus Hill Oriental Medicine in St. Paul, Minne­
sota. He is adjunct faculty with the University of Minnesota, an expert
herbalist wild-crafter, and leads the network initiative investigating
medicinal herb quality.
Natalia Hanazaki is an ecologist and professor in the Department of
Ecology and Zoology at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina,
Brazil. She is also an associate researcher at the Centre of Environ­
mental Studies (NEPAM) of the Universidade de Campinas, Brazil.
Her research is focused on human ecology and ethnobiology, espe­
cially the use of natural resources, and ethnobotany.
Craig A. Hassel is an associate professor and extension specialist in
food and nutrition in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at
the University of Minnesota, St. Paul. He received his PhD in nutri­
tional science at the University of Arizona. His current research inter­
ests include cross-cultural understandings of food as medicine and
health/nutrition.
Thomas W. Kuyper is a fungal ecologist at Wageningen University.
His main interest is the role of fungi in ecosystem functioning in tem­
perate and tropical forests and agro-ecosystems.
Ana H. Ladio is an ethnobotanist and ecologist. She is a researcher in
the Ecology Department of the Universidad Nacional del Comahue,
 Contributors xv

Argentina. Her research focuses on wild edible and medicinal plant

use in northwest Patagonia from an ecological perspective.
Ramon Morales is a botanist/ethnobotanist and researcher at Real
Jardfn Botanico de Madrid, CSIC (Spain). His research focuses on
the Labiatae family and ethnobotany in Spain, especially food and
medicinal plants.
Charles Ogoye-Ndegwa has a background in medical and nutri­
tional anthropology. He previously focused on breast-feeding and
childhood and pregnancy food taboos. With over ten years of pro­
gressive involvement in research, he now focuses on the social mod­
eling of trade-offs between gender, disease, and development. He
works at the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI).
Patrick L. Owen is a PhD candidate at the School of Dietetics and
Human Nutrition and the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition
and Environment at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. His re­
search interests are ethnonutrition and ethnobotany in relation to met­
abolic diseases.
Manuel Pardo de Santayana is a botanist/ethnobotanist and re­
searcher at Real Jardfn Botanico de Madrid, CSIC (Spain). He re­
searches Spanish ethnopharmacology and ethnotaxonomy and is also
working on the Labiatae family in the Flora Iberica Project.
Nivaldo Peroni is an agronomist with a master’s degree in genetics
and doctoral degree in plant biology. He is associate researcher at the
Centre of Environmental Studies (NEPAM) of the Universidade de
Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. His research focuses on ethnobotany
and plant domestication, especially the use, conservation, and ampli­
fication of genetic resources.
Cassandra L. Quave is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Bi­
ology, Center for Ethnobiology and Natural Products at Florida Inter­
national University. Her research focuses on the bioactivity of medic­
inal plants used in traditional healing practices in the Mediterranean.
Marsha B. Quinlan is a medical anthropologist in the Department of
Anthropology at Washington State University. Her research focuses
on ethnomedicine, health behavior in families, and ethnobotany.
Robert J. Quinlan is a biocultural anthropologist and assistant pro­
fessor in the Department of Anthropology at Ball State University in
XVI EATING AND HEAUNG

Muncie, Indiana. His research is in the areas of human evolutionary

ecology and health.
Rossano M. Ramos graduated with a degree in biological sciences
from the Universidade de Campinas, Brazil, and is a graduate student
in the Environmental Sciences Program at Universidade de Sao
Paulo, Brazil. His research is focused on game and foraging strategies
in the Amazon, at the Reserva Extrativista do Alto Jurua.
Elia San Miguel is an ethnobotanist and researcher at Real Jardfn
Botanico de Madrid, CS1C (Spain). She is researching the ethno-
botany of the Asturias region of Spain.
Sabino Sanca is the president of the semiformal traditional healers’ as­
sociation AMETRAC (Association de Medicos Tradicionales) from
the Andean community Apillapampa, Cochabamba Department, Boli­
via. He was initiated into traditional medicine more than 25 years ago
and has traveled to other Latin American countries for workshops on
medicinal plants.
Renne Soberg has been growing medicinal herbs organically for
over ten years in Lakeville, Minnesota. He founded the Organic Herb
Producers Cooperative and leads the Medicinal Herb Network initia­
tives on field trials and feasibility studies of medicinal herb produc­
tion, as well as postharvest processing and essential oil production.
Nancy J. Turner is located at the School of Environmental Studies,
University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia. She is a professor
of ethnoecology.
Ina Vandebroek is a biologist with PhD in medical sciences. She has
carried out two years of postdoctoral fieldwork in the Bolivian Andes
and the Amazon to study the use of medicinal plants for community
health care and knowledge variability among traditional healers. She
is currently a researcher at the New York Botanical Garden.
Gabriele Volpato is an ethnobotanist and biologist who has been
working in Cuba for the past four years, first as a student of the De­
partment of Biology at the University of Padua and currently in the
Department of Social Sciences at Wageningen University, the Neth­
erlands. His research focuses on ethnobiological and ecological is­
sues in the use of Cuban traditional food and medicinal plants.
 Acknowledgments

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to our colleague

Professor Anke Niehof for her encouragement and generous support
during the preparation of this manuscript. We also thank Michael G.
Price and Joy Burroughs for their patience in assisting in the difficult
task of the scientific copy editing.

X V II
 COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 6 was first published in Charles R. Menzies (Ed.), Tradi­

tional Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management by
Nancy J. Turner and Helen Clifton. Copyright 2006. Reprinted with
permission from University of Nebraska Press.
Chapter 7 was first published as “Using Chinese Medicine to Under­
stand Medicinal Herb Quality: An Alternative to Biomedical Ap­
proaches?” in Agriculture and Human Values, 2002,19, pp. 337-347,
by C. A. Hassel, C. Hafner, R. Soberg, J. Adelmann, and R. Hay­
wood. Copyright 2002. Reprinted with expressed permission from
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Chapter 14 was first published as “Traditional Gathering of Wild
Vegetables Among the Luo” in Ecology o f Food and Nutrition, 2003,
42(1), pp. 69-89, by Charles Ogoye-Ndegwa and Jens Aagaard-
Hansen. Copyright 2003. Reproduced by permission of Taylor &
Francis, Inc., http://www.routledge-ny.com.

X V lll
 Introduction
Andrea Pieroni
Lisa Leimar Price

We both have childhood memories of the way women in our lives

would arrange the cuisine so that it served as both food and medicine.
Pieroni recalls chestnut-meal polenta boiled in the new red wine: that
was one of the most common cough remedies used by grandmothers
in Pieroni’s home region in the mountains of northern Tuscany during
the cold winter months. Price recalls her childhood in the United
States and the chicken soup served to ease the discomfort of and
speed recovery from a common cold, as well as the inevitable prune
juice to relieve childhood constipation.
Since the days of our childhoods, these foods have become recog­
nized as “functional foods.” However, the link to culture and tradition
is barely visible in scientific undertakings. In fact, what we both
learned in our respective formal educations in pharmacy and anthro­
pology was that food and medicine were two different arenas. Only
recently are we learning the importance of the food-medicine link­
ages.
Plants may be used both as medicine and food, and it is difficult to
draw a line between these two areas: food may be medicine, and vice
versa. Plant resources in traditional societies, especially wild greens,
are often used multicontextually as food and medicine. The gathering
or cultivation, preparation, and consumption of these species are
rooted in the emic perceptions of the natural environments coupled
with available resources, local cuisine and medical practices, taste
appreciation, and cultural heritage (Johns, 1990, 1999; Etkin, 1994,
1996; Price, 1997; Heinrich, 1998; Pieroni, 2000; Pieroni et al.,
2002).
Much is still to be discovered about the fascinating links between
food and medicine among different cultures, even more than 20 years
after the superb work of Nina Etkin and Paul Ross (1982) on the me­
dicinal plant uses among the Hausa in Nigeria, where out of 235
/
2 EATING AND HEAUNG

noncultivated medicinal plants, 63 taxa were also used as food. A

number of studies on the potential health benefit aspects of traditional
foods show that such plants have specific pharmacological effects.
For example, Timothy Johns and co-workers (Johns and Kokwaro,
1991; Uiso and Johns, 1995;Johns, Mhoro, and Sanaya, 1996; Johns,
Mhoro, and Uiso, 1996; Johns et al., 1999; Owen and Johns, 2002)
have demonstrated how the overlap of food and medicine are related
to the ingestion of phytochemicals that can explain very diverse cul­
tural food behaviours and health outcomes. For example, in the case
of the Maasai paradox, the Maasai obtain 66 percent of calories from
fat, yet they do not suffer from illnesses typical of high-fat diets found
in Western cultures. This has been attributed to the high level of
saphins (which bind cholesterol) in the 25 or so different plants they
combine into a soup along with their high-fat foods. Although we
have had few but very important contributions in the area of plant
foods as medicines, much less is known about traditional consump­
tion of animal food-medicines such as fish (Begossi, 1998).
This book explores this gray area between food and medicine and
the diverse ways in which these two cosmos overlap and penetrate
each other in traditional and indigenous cultures.
We have placed Louis Grivetti’s contribution as the first chapter in
this book. Grivetti (along with Britta Ogle) made an important and
lasting early contribution to understanding traditional food and medi­
cine through his investigations into wild-food plant gathering and
consumption (for example, Ogle and Grivetti, 1985a, b, c, d). The
contemporary contributions of Grivetti and his collaborators and stu­
dents continue this tradition of providing exciting and challenging in­
sights (Grivetti and Ogle, 2000; Johnson and Grivetti, 2002a, b; Ogle
et al., 2003). Thus, it is a great pleasure for us that Louis Grivetti
agreed to place his contribution in the introductory position of the
book, starting the volume off with his reflections on 30 years of re­
search in the field of edible wild plants as food and medicine.
The main research themes in Grivetti’s group have been the cul­
tural and nutritional aspects of the use of edible wild plants; studies of
cultural diversity in geographical regions of environmental similarity
(culture variable/environment constant); or studies of cultures that
occupy different ecological niches (environmental variable/culture
constant). Three efforts have characterized Grivetti’s work: (1) pro­
curement and dietary uses of wild plants during periods of drought or
 Introduction 3

social unrest; (2) maintenance of the ability to recognize edible wild

species; and (3) nutrient analysis of key species. The chapter by
Grivetti summarizes this amazing work and concludes with selected
topics for further investigation.
The contributions in the book look at many of the aspects descried
by Grivetti, analyzing diverse case studies from around the globe
through the lens of cultural, environmental, and/or biopharmacologi-
cal aspects of the traditional consumption of biological resources.
The chapters that come after Grivetti’s are arranged according to
geographic regions of the world: two contributions for Asia, two for
Europe, two for North America, two for the Caribbean, four for South
America, and three for Africa. While this division represents differ­
ent geographic areas, the reader will find that certain topics and
themes within each chapter are common in multiple regions.

ASIA

Patrick Owen’s contribution on Tibetan foods and medicines ex­

amines antioxidants in the Tibetan diet as potential mediators of high-
altitude nutritional physiology. He reviews biotic and abiotic influ­
ences on high-altitude nutritional physiology. Tibetan highlanders
have a low incidence of heart disease despite a diet rich in saturated
fat. His work shows that an interplay of factors and protective ele­
ments are involved in the low incidence of cardiovascular disease and
proposes that the highlander Tibetans have incorporated foods that
contain prophylactic elements.
Lisa Price’s chapter has a double function. She provides a back­
ground to wild/semidomesticated plant foods gathered in agricultural
environments that provides a framework for a deeper understanding
of these plants at the interface of foods and food-medicines. This
framework is married to her own field research in Northeast Thailand
and the role of wild plant foods in rural life. She goes on to discuss her
findings on the overlap of gathered food plants with medicines and as
functional foods and explores the multiple-use value of these plants
in farmer’s deciding to establish gathering restrictions for selected
species they perceive as rare. Throughout the chapter, the roles of
women in general, and in Northeast Thailand in particular, are dis­
cussed.
4 EATING AND HEALING

EUROPE

Andrea Pieroni and Cassandra Quave provide a comparative study

on the consumption of wild plants among ethnic Albanians and Ital­
ians living in southern Italy. They distinguish between wild plants
used in separate contexts as food or medicine, as functional foods, or
as food-medicines. The research populations do not perceive func­
tional foods to have specific medical properties, but just consider
them to be “healthy,” while medicinal foods (food-medicines) have
clear folk medical prescriptions.
Pieroni and Quave’s research on the medicinal or nutraceutical
value of many of these plants has demonstrated high antioxidant ac­
tivity and potential as therapeutic agents for the management and pre­
vention of chronic diseases such as diabetes, stroke, and coronary
heart disease. Their high levels of antioxidants may be especially im­
portant in the prevention and management of age-related diseases
(ARDs). The authors suggest that recording and conserving tradi­
tional knowledge regarding the use of plants is of utmost importance,
not only for the biocultural conservation of the communities/environ-
ments studied but also for future medical advancements in the pre­
vention and management of chronic diseases. Given the current so­
cioeconomic and cultural shifts in rural southern Italy, conservation
and restoration of the plants and plant knowledge must be undertaken
soon.
Manuel Pardo de Santayana, Elia San Miguel, and Ramon Morales
analyze the digestive beverages used as medicinal food in a cattle-
breeding community in northern Spain (Campoo, Cantabria). They
note a tremendous erosion of traditional knowledge about wild plants
and their uses. For example, they note that only 20 percent of the wild
food species previously consumed are still eaten today. A few excep­
tions were represented by infusions. These infusions are frequently
ingested for both the tasty flavor and medicinal digestive properties.
One example is the homemade digestive spirits, such as pachardn,
prepared with blackthorn fruits (Prunus spinosa). Their chapter illus­
trates the considerable interest in southern Europe to examine
changes in lifeways and habits among traditional rural societies and
the potential use of traditional knowledge for the development and
marketing of new “old” nutraceuticals. In order to economically di­
versify and revitalize rural areas such as Campoo we should look
 Introduction 5

back and rediscover valuable traditional practices and knowledge,

maintain active ones, and adopt strategies for exchanging informa­
tion and experiences with other, similar cultures and regions.

NORTH AMERICA

For the region of North America, Nancy Turner and Helen Clifton
collaborated to study the harvesting and consumption of seaweed
among the Gitga’at, a Sm’algyax- (Tsimshian-) speaking people of
Hartley Bay in British Columbia, Canada. Their work illustrates how
the harvesting and consumption of seaweed reflects a complex, tradi­
tional ecological knowledge system that links the land and the sea,
people and other life-forms, and culture to nature. Their study is
about eating rather than the healing aspects of seaweed consumption,
but it still provides an important contribution to this book because of
the links made between nutritional, cultural, and environmental
knowledge on an underresearched, traditional wild food resource.
Helen Clifton, as a member of the Gita’at Nation of Hartley Bay,
brings particular cultural richness to this chapter.
In the modern metropolitan U.S. context, Craig Hassel, Christo­
pher Hafner, Renne Soberg, and Jeff Adelmann analyze how tradi­
tional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners use descriptive sensory
analysis procedures to assess the quality of medical herbs, and how
that challenge inspired a joint network of herb growers and Chinese
practitioners to improve the quality of TCM drugs. They provide in­
formation about foods used as medicine in the CM tradition and the
dilemmas faced by CM practitioners in the United States when the
Chinese medicinal epistomology is not accounted for in the Western
biomedical paradigm.

THE CARIBBEAN

In the Caribbean, Marsha and Robert Quinlan report on the “bush

medicine” (home health care) practiced in Dominica (Lesser Antil­
les) and show how the system is based on a version of New World
hot/cold humoral theory. All body tissues and fluids, especially blood
and mucus, are assumed to react to heat and cold. Cold illnesses are
6 EATING AND HEALING

associated with respiratory problems or are stress induced and re­

quire hot remedies, ingested as seasonings and herbal “teas,” to thin
secretions and to help sufferers relax. Hot illnesses have to do with in­
creased body heat, redness, and swelling and are usually thought to
stem from dirt or feces in the body. These illnesses are treated with
cold foods and “teas.” that often have laxative properties. Moreover, a
food or herb’s humoral quality is determined by how it affects
illnesses and the body.
Gabriele Volpato and Daimy Godinez studied the medicinal foods
of Cuban households and demonstrate how economic factors, ethnic­
ity, and historic antecedents play a role in the dynamic strategies that
people adopt to heal minor troubles by using food preparations.

SOUTH AMERICA

For South America, Alpina Begossi, Natalia Hanazaki, and

Rossano Ramos offer a unique contribution on animal-derived food
medicines. They examine the various fish species that are recom­
mended in the diets of invalids, as well as the medicinal fish used
among the Caigaras of the Brazilian Atlantic forest coast and the
Caboclos of the Brazilian Amazon. By using interviews based on
questionnaires and direct observations during long fieldwork periods
on the islands of Buzios, Gipoia, and Vitoria, and in the coastal com­
munities of Jureia and Ubatuba on the Atlantic Forest coast, they dis­
cover that fish recommended for invalids tend to have a diet based on
vegetal matter, detritus, or invertebrates. They propose that the use of
nonpiscivorous prey (i.e., fish that do not feed on other fish) in the
diet of invalids may be associated with the reduced risk of accumulat­
ing toxins from fish from lower trophic levels compared with fish
from high trophic levels.
Natalia Hanazaki, Nivaldo Peroni, and Alpina Begossi address the
comparative uses of edible and healing plants of native inhabitants of
the Amazon and Atlantic Forest areas of Brazil. They collected data
through interviews with 433 native residents whose livelihood is
based mainly on fisheries and small-scale agriculture. They found
that about 20 percent of the plants mentioned in the Amazon area
were used for both food and medicine,, while the proportion in the At­
lantic Forest area consisted of approximately half of the documented
species.
 Introduction 7

In their contribution, Ina Vandebroek and Sabino Sanca analyze

the use of food medicines in the Bolivian Andes. They discovered
that 50 percent of the 43 species they document as overlapping as
food and medicine are wild species. Eleven of these are “weeds”
growing around agricultural fields. Aerial parts and fruits are used
most frequently for food as well as for medicine.
Ana Ladio investigated the gathering activity of wild plant foods
with medicinal use in a Mapuche Community of Northwest Pata­
gonia in Argentina. She shows how the selection of edible and medic­
inal plants in the Cayulef community is influenced by botanical, eco­
logical, and sociocultural aspects that lead to distinct patterns of
species use. Cayulef people know and use a variety of wild edible
plants, some of which are also utilized as medicine—representing a
substantial overlap of edible and medicinal species (63 percent).
These medicinal foods enlarge the opportunities to cure illness and
improve the well-being of families at the same time. Moreover, wild
food species with medicinal and nonmedicinal uses belong to diverse
botanical families that are distinct from the botanical families of the
exclusively edible species. Ladio proposes that chemotaxonomical
differences between the plants utilized as food-medicine can explain
the existence of a systematic and evolutionary pattern in wild plant
use.

AFRICA

Charles Ogoye-Ndegwa and Jens Aagaard-Hansen’s chapter ex­

plores the dietary and medicinal use of traditional herbs among the
Luo of Western Kenya. They studied the cultural aspects (percep­
tions, attitudes, and practices) of traditional herbs with regard to di­
etary and medicinal use over a period of four years. They identified
72 different edible plants, most of which grow wild. Out of these 72,
65 were perceived to have medicinal value as well as being used for
food. The authors emphasize how these herbs are an underutilized re­
source and how they could represent a precious potential for dealing
with both food insecurity and the need for preventive health care in
vulnerable communities.
In the context of southern Cameroon, Thomas Kuyper analyzes how
different populations (Bantu, Bagyeli) differ in patterns of mushroom
8 EATING AND HEALING

consumption for dietary and medicinal purposes. He shows how these

differences depend on the mushroom species that occur in the various
ecosystems, their phenology, and the habitats in which local popula­
tions collect and cultivate their food sources. Extensive mushroom
knowledge does not automatically imply a high social valuation of
mushrooms and hence a high consumption. Kuyper points out the im­
portance of understanding social and cultural factors that affect mush­
room consumption when proposing interventions such as mushroom
cultivation as a source for improving food security.
Mohamed Eddouks reports on the overlap between food and medi­
cine and ethnopharmacology in Morocco. Eddouks demonstrates
how food medicines represent an integral part of the health care sys­
tem in Morocco and how many pathologies have been traditionally
treated using foods. He provides cultural insights as well as a list of
foods used as medicine in Morocco and examines phytotherapy in
different regions of the country. He also notes that women frequently
use more medicinal plants than men. He concludes that phytotherapy
should not be used by only the poor but be a real tool of medicine for
all people.

REFERENCES

Begossi, A. (1998). Food taboos: A scientific reason? In Prendergast, H.D.V., N.L.

Etkin, D.R. Harris, and PJ. Houghton (Eds.), Plants for food and medicine.
Kew, UK: The Royal Botanical Gardens.
Etkin, N.L. (1994). The cull of the wild. In Etkin, N.L. (Ed.), Eating on the wild side.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Etkin, N.L. (1996). Medicinal cuisines: Diet and ethnopharmacology. International
Journal of Pharmacognosy 34: 313-326.
Etkin, N.L. and P.J. Ross (1982). Food as medicine and medicine as food: An adap­
tive framework for the interpretation of plant utilisation among the Hausa of
northern Nigeria. Social Science and Medicine 16: 1559-1573.
Grivetti, L.E. and B.M. Ogle (2000). Value of traditional foods in meeting macro-
and micronutrients needs: The wild plant connection. Nutrition Research Review
13: 31-46.
Heinrich, M. (1998). Plants as antidiarrhoeals in medicine and diet. In Prendergast,
H.D.V., N.L. Etkin, D.R. Harris, and P.J. Houghton (Eds.), Plants for food and
medicine. Kew, UK: The Royal Botanical Gardens.
Johns, T. (1990). With bitter herbs they shall eat it. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press.
 Introduction 9

Johns, T. ( 1999). Plant constituents and the nutrition and health of indigenous peo­
ples. In Nazarea, V.D. (Ed.), Ethnoecology—Situated knowledge, located lives.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Johns, T. and J.O. Kokwaro (1991). Food plants of the Luo of Siaya District, Kenya.
Economic Botany 45: 103-113.
Johns, T., R.L.A. Mahunnah, P. Sanaya, L. Chapman, and T. Ticktin (1999). Sapo-
nins and phenolic content in plant dietary additives of a traditional subsistence
community, the Bateni of Ngorongoro District, Tanzania. Journal of Ethnophar-
macology 66: 1-10.
Johns, T., E.B. Mhoro, and P. Sanaya (1996). Food plants and masticants of the
Batemi of Ngorongoro District, Tanzania. Economic Botany 50: 115-121.
Johns, T., E.B. Mhoro, and F.C. Uiso (1996). Edible plants of Mara Region, Tanza­
nia. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 35: 71-80.
Johnson, N. and L.E. Grivetti (2002a). Environmental change in Northern Thailand:
Impact on wild edible plant availability. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 41: 373-
399.
Johnson, N. and L.E. Grivetti (2002b). Gathering practices of Karen women: Ques­
tionable contribution to beta-carotene intake. International Journal of Food Sci­
ences and Nutrition 53: 489-501.
Ogle, B.M. and L.E. Grivetti (1985a). Legacy of the chameleon: Edible wild plants
in the kingdom of Swaziland, southern Africa. A cultural, ecological, nutritional
study. Part I— Introduction, objectives, methods, Swazi culture, landscape and
diet. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 16: 193-208.
Ogle, B.M. and L.E. Grivetti (1985b). Legacy of the chameleon: Edible wild plants
in the kingdom of Swaziland, southern Africa. A cultural, ecological, nutritional
study. Part II— Demographics, species, availability and dietary use, analysis by
ecological zone. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 17: 1-30.
Ogle, B.M. and L.E. Grivetti (1985c). Legacy of the chameleon: Edible wild plants
in the kingdom of Swaziland, southern Africa. A cultural, ecological, nutritional
study. Part 111— Cultural and ecological analysis. Ecology of Food and Nutrition
17: 31-40.
Ogle, B.M. and L.E. Grivetti (1985d). Legacy of the chameleon: Edible wild plants
in the kingdom of Swaziland, southern Africa. A cultural, ecological, nutritional
study. Part IV— Nutritional values and conclusions. Ecology of Food and Nutri­
tion 17: 41-64.
Ogle, B.M., H.T. Tuyet, H.N. Duyet, and N.N.X. Dung (2003). Food, feed or medi­
cine: The multiple functions of edible wild plants in Vietnam. Economic Botany
57: 103-1 17.
Owen, P.L. and T. Johns (2002). Antioxidant in medicines and spices as cardio­
protective agents in Tibetan highlanders. Pharmaceutical Biology 40: 346-357.
Pieroni, A. (2000). Medicinal plants and food medicines in the folk traditions of the
upper Lucca Province, Italy. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 70: 235-273.
10 EATING AND HEALING

Pieroni, A., S. Nebel, C. Quave, H. Miinz, and M. Heinrich (2002). Ethnopharma-

cology of liakra: Traditional weedy vegetables of the Arbereshe of the Vulture
area in southern Italy. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 81:165-185.
Price, L. (1997). Wild plant food in agricultural environments: A study of occur­
rence, management, and gathering rights in Northeast Thailand. Human Organi­
zation 56: 209-221.
Uiso, F. and T. Johns (1995). Risk assessment of the consumption of a pyrroiizidine
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 Chapter 1

Edible Wild Plants As Food

and As Medicine: Reflections
on Thirty Years of Fieldwork
Louis E. Grivetti

INTRODUCTION

Ethnobotanical themes have characterized the efforts of my re­

search group for nearly three decades. The first portion of this chapter
reviews the genesis that led to my professional interest in ethno-
botany, includes an overview of my initial research conducted nearly
three decades ago in the eastern Kalahari Desert of southern Africa,
and presents unpublished fieldwork data related to the theme of the
present volume. The second portion of this chapter summarizes the
research of our team since 1976. The concluding section of this chap­
ter identifies promising research themes.

GENESIS

I am not a trained botanist: I took no formal botanical course work

during my undergraduate or graduate training. In fact, I expressed lit­
tle interest in the plant kingdom until the middle years of my life.
That ethnobotany has been one of the major themes in my geograph­
ical and nutritional research during the past three decades, therefore,
needs a brief explanation. As an undergraduate and graduate student
at the University of California, Berkeley (1956-1962), I majored in
paleontology with complementary interests in anthropology, geol­
ogy, and zoology. Ethnobotany was an acquired interest, initially pe-

11
12 EATING AND HEAUNG

ripheral, but it then became central to my doctoral training in geogra­

phy at the University of California, Davis (1970-1976).
My dissertation supervisor was Professor Frederick Simoons. He
guided me in cultural food practices and encouraged me to explore
the nutritional consequences of food-related behavior. Simoons was a
geographer, and through his training I was exposed to the general the­
ories of plant and animal domestication, especially the works of Ed­
gar Anderson and Carl Sauer. 1 was intrigued by Anderson’s noncon­
formist view that the rationale for plant domestication was not food,
but aesthetics, beauty, and color. I also admired Anderson’s creative
idea of “the garbage dump,” whereby ancient hunter-gatherers ulti­
mately came to recognize the potential value of having supplies of
plant foods adjacent to human encampments (Anderson, 1952). As a
graduate student I listened intently when Carl Sauer lectured and re­
lated his thesis that maize had been exchanged across the Pacific
and/or Atlantic Oceans well before 1492 (Sauer, 1969). I also was in­
trigued with Sauer’s view that “sophisticated fisher-folks” living at
midelevations in mountainous terrain adjacent to lakes may have
been the first humans to domesticate plants and that future excava­
tions at highland regions within the tropics would confirm his thesis
(Sauer, 1952),
I selected a dissertation problem in the Republic of Botswana:
Why had the Tswana peoples of the eastern Kalahari thrived during
eight years of drought between 1965-1973, when a drought of similar
intensity and timing in the West African Sahel had caused the un­
timely deaths of more than 2 million people? The enigma was obvi­
ous: two similar agro-economic systems in similar environmental
niches—but the Kalahari cultures thrived while the Sahel cultures ex­
perienced social disruption and death.
In order to secure funding for my fieldwork, I was employed as the
Administrative Officer for the Meharry/Botswana Maternal and
Child Health Project and seconded to the Botswana Ministry of
Health. My wife and I arrived in Gaborone, the national capital, in
April 1973. My dissertation topic was submitted to and reviewed by
the Botswana Office of the President, and I was approved to work
among the baTlokwa ba Moshaweng, a Tswana society whose tribal
capital, Tlokweng, lay a short distance east of Gaborone. My project-
related responsibilities kept me at the Ministry during the day, where
I backstopped a team of professionals and public health educators
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