Plants for Desperate Times
eBook - ePub

Plants for Desperate Times

The Diversity of Life-Saving Famine Foods

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Plants for Desperate Times

The Diversity of Life-Saving Famine Foods

About this book

Famines and other serious food shortages have been one of the scourges faced by humanity for millennia.

Plants for Desperate Times is an introduction to the diversity of plant foods that have saved millions of lives during lethal food shortages. While not a field guide, it addresses questions about what famine foods are and why they are important. The work highlights one hundred plants. Each entry includes the common and scientific names, botanical family, distribution, use as a famine food and other uses, and nutritional information. The species come from across the botanical kingdom, demonstrating the diversity of life-saving plants and the human ingenuity of making what might seem to be inedible plants edible. Unexpectedly, important famine foods include alternative uses of important crops as well as native plants.

Beyond a study of famine foods, the authors share why keeping an inventory of plant foods of last resort is so important. They help to build an understanding of little-known and underappreciated foods that may have a greater role in provisioning humanity in the future. As much as we may hope that severe food scarcity will never occur again, history suggests otherwise, and Plants for Desperate Times provides invaluable documentation of these vital foods.

 

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Yes, you can access Plants for Desperate Times by Paul E. Minnis,Robert Freedman in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Botany. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Preface
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. 1. Why Famine Foods?
  9. 2. Characteristics and Types of Famine Foods
  10. 3. Seeds
  11. 4. Fruits and Nuts
  12. 5. Tuberous Foods
  13. 6. Greens
  14. 7. Bark, Other Parts, and Plant-like Organisms
  15. 8. A Future for These Important Life-Saving Foods
  16. References Cited
  17. Credits
  18. Botanical Index
  19. General Index