5/2/2021 0 Comments Film Semi Brown Sugar Thailand
It is important to examine traditional food practices from their local epistemological framework and how they related to local worldviews, health, and wellbeing.The rapid diet transition in the region is leading to a high prevalence of non-communicable diseases.The aim of this exploratory study was to document traditional foods and beverages and associated traditional knowledge that have potential positive health impacts, from selected countries in the region.
The study also focused on identifying their importance in the prevention and management of lifestyle-related diseases and nutritional deficiencies as well as for the improvement of the overall health and wellbeing. This was conducted in selected locations in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Nepal through a qualitative method with a pre-tested documentation format. Through a detailed documentation of their health benefits, the study tries to highlight the significance of traditional foods in public health as well as their relevance to local market economies towards sustainable production and consumption and sustainable community livelihoods. This is also reflected in the dietary diversity of traditional foods. Traditional foods encompass those foods that have been nurtured, have sustained, and have promoted through generations since time immemorial. They are biogeographically diverse and often community specific. These are part of food cultures which are retained and practiced in their original form, flavor taste, and presentation style. These are a direct reflection of the heritage, historycivilization, and culture of a society in a particular region. Often these have remained unexposed to modern methods of food processing and remained in the confines of local production and consumption systems. Due to the dynamic adaptations to local biocultural contexts and refinement over generations through empirical observations, they assume to have positive health impacts for the local population. These health-related cultural knowledges may pertain to specific agricultural practices; growing conditions; harvest methods; storage; processing; cooking methods; preservation practices; compatibility and incompatibility of food materials and processing methods; classifications of foods based on morphological, organoleptic, or other features; seasonal; health; geography; festival-related traditional knowledge; and so on. Some of those aspects have a major impact on the nutritional content as well as gastronomic features of food. The rapid urbanization coupled with intensive production and consumption systems as well as rapid lifestyle changes has resulted in an increase in non-communicable chronic diseases, re-emerging infectious diseases, environmental degradation, and healthcare inequity. Under-nutrition especially protein-energy malnutrition and deficiencies of vitamin A, iodine, and iron continue to be the major issues in developing and the least developed countries 11. Access to sufficiently nutritious food is a fundamental factor in good health and a major challenge in the face of the global trend of diet simplification. The diet transition has cut across sections of society as evidenced in the increased dependence on street foods and fast foods globalized food chains and so on 15. These have contributed to varied health and public health system challenges. This demands a fresh look at healthy traditional foods and localized production and consumption systems. There is a critical need of creating data on traditional knowledge-related food and nutrition practices 41 in the context of the above-cited health challenges. Past studies suggest interesting linkages between traditional practices and health, i.e., direct links to cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, cancer, diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver, obesity, deficiency disorders, among others. There are significant studies from the region in relation to preventive and promotive health linkages of traditional food practices as well as increased life expectancy 74.
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