Plants In Human Nutrition

The present world population of about five billion and its projected growth cre ate enonnous pressures and demands for food and industrial raw materials. It is to crop plants, one of our precious few renewable resources, that we must look to meet most of these needs. Globally, about 88% of our caloric requirements and 90% of our protein ultimately derive from plant sources-ample evidence of their importance to humankind. Our survival will therefore continue to de pend on the world's largest and certainly most important industry: agriculture. Yet in spite of our long history of domestication and civilization, the number of crop species involved in sustaining human life is strictly limited: Essentially, some twenty-four crops protect us from starvation. To know these basic food crop plants-to study how they function and how their productivity may be improved--is the first step in solving the world food problem. The primary objectives in writing this book were to address this chal lenge and to review comprehensively the wealth of available yet scattered infor mation on food crop productivity and processing. Unlike several other texts and monographs in this field, the present work was intended to give, in a single volume, a quick, infonnative view of the various problems from field to table concerning the major food crops worldwide.

This book provides a comprehensive review on the status of iron nutrition in plants. It contains updated reviews of most relevant issues involving Fe in plants and combines research on molecular biology with physiological studies of plant-iron nutrition. It also covers molecular aspects of iron uptake and storage in Arabidopsis and transmembrane movement and translocation of iron in plants. This book should serve to stimulate continued exploration in the field.

The present volume includes a series of studies on edible wild plants and their impact on human health. Today the diet of developed societies is limited to a few cultivated vegetables while the developing countries often lack an adequate supply of micronutrients. Wild plants contain antioxidant, omega-3 fatty acid and micronutrient components that contribute to both a decrease in the risk for chronic diseases as well as the reduction of nutritional deficiencies. Thus they address many diet-related problems at both ends of the socio-economic spectrum. Results from research provide data on the composition of indigenous plants from various areas of the world and show that consumption of green leafy vegetables corrects deficiencies successfully. The book also deals with nutrition policy integrating indigenous foods against micronutrient deficiency. Implementation of scientific evidence is an essential precondition for improving nutrition policy. Nutritionists, food producers, botanists, agronomists, food technologists, pharmacologists as well as all professionals involved with food policy and human development will find in this book a valuable and updated basis for their work.

"This beautifully illustrated book reviews scientific and technological information about the world's major food plants and their culinary uses. An introductory chapter discusses nutritional and other fundamental scientific aspects of plant foods. The 100 main chapters deal with a particular species or group of species. All categories of food plants are covered, including cereals, oilseeds, fruits, nuts, vegetables, legumes, herbs, spices, beverage plants and sources of industrial food extracts. Information is provided on scientific and common names, appearance, history, economic and social importance, food uses (including practical information on storage and preparation), as well as notable curiosities. There are more than 3000 literature citations in the book and the text is complemented by over 250 exquisitely drawn illustrations. Given the current, alarming rise in food costs and increasing risk of hunger in many regions, specialists in diverse fields will find this reference work to be especially useful. As well, those familiar with Dr. Small's books or those with an interest in gardening, cooking and human health in relation to diet will want to own a copy of this book."--Publisher's web site.

Plant nutrition; The soil as a plant nutrient medium; Nutrient uptake and assimilation; Plant water relationships; Plant growth and crop production; Fertilizer application; Nitrogen; Sulphur; Phosphorus; Potassium; Calcium; Magnesium; Iron; Manganese; Zinc; Copper; Molybdenum; Boron; Further elements of importance; Elements with more toxic effects.

In June 2011, Don Matesz enraged some of the followers of his "paleo" and low-carbohydrate diet blog with his "Farewell to Paleo" post wherein he detailed both evidence-based and personal reasons for abandoning the meat-based diet. By August of 2014, this post had more than 100,000 page views. In September 2011, Matesz presented a talk - "Ancestral Nutrition: An Alternative Approach" - at the first ever Ancestral Health Conference at UCLA. That lecture focused on identifying physiological evidence for human nutritional adaptations to either plant-based or animal-based diet and it evolved into this book. Powered By Plants refutes the "paleolithic diet" claim that meat-eating uniquely drove human evolution by reviewing the abundant evidence that a plant-based diet powered human evolution. Challenging anthropologists and advocates of low-carbohydrate and 'paleo' diets who claim that paleolithic meat-eating made us human, Matesz shows that we have numerous heritable anatomical, physiological, and biochemical features primarily adapted to acquisition, digestion, or metabolism of whole plant foods, but lack the heritable features expected as evidence of evolution dependent upon and primarily driven by meat consumption. Powered By Plants surveys human biology from head-to-toe, and, backed by hundreds of references, shows that our sensory, locomotive, manual, digestive, and reproductive systems, and our nutrient metabolism, all have features primarily adapted to a whole foods plant-based diet.

The burgeoning demand on the world food supply, coupled with concern over the use of chemical fertilizers, has led to an accelerated interest in the practice of precision agriculture. This practice involves the careful control and monitoring of plant nutrition to maximize the rate of growth and yield of crops, as well as their nutritional value.