Poster Presentation
9. Foodscapes: Cultivation, Livelihoods, Gastronomy
Globally, current food systems have come to rely on a narrow range of low-nutrient plant species, disregarding the diversity of nutrient-rich plants used historically, especially in the diets of indigenous and rural communities, including in Indonesia. Encouragingly, the trend to mainstream biodiversity for food, nutrition, and health by embracing underutilized resources has gained momentum worldwide. In this context, wild food plants (WFP) have emerged as promising avenues to address public health issues and nutritional disparities, but the evidence is still lacking for broader adoption. Through a case study among the Sundanese community in a rural area in West Java, Indonesia, this study aimed to fill this gap by exploring the possibilities of WFP to improve people's nutrition and health. We asked specifically: 1) What WFPs are consumed and nutritionally significant? 2) How may WFP consumption impact health and well-being? Mixed methods were employed, including an ethnobotany survey, a cross-sectional survey of dietary intake (24-hour dietary recall and a food frequency questionnaire), and a standard subjective health assessment (SF 12) of 107 rural women.
Yen Yen Sally Rahayu
The University of Tokyo, Japan