7/8/2023 0 Comments Symphytum officinale pomada![]() Several authors have highlighted that one of the reasons that explain the prevalence of its consumption is that they have a clear positive influence on health ( Leonti et al., 2006, Sánchez-Mata et al., 2012). Indeed one of the well-known benefits of the Mediterranean diet is its long life expectancy ( Willett et al., 1995) and many ethnobotanical surveys around the region show the importance of wild food plants and specifically wild vegetables in the Mediterranean diet (e.g., Pieroni et al., 2005 Rivera et al., 2005 Tardío et al., 2006 Leonti, 2012). Heinrich and Prieto-García, 2008 Keatinge et al., 2010). The quest for diets which allow for a healthy ageing is strongly linked with increased life expectancy and larger financial assets of some sectors of the population (e.g. the elderly, the young, physically active people, and people with specific conditions). An important aspect that is being highlighted in this discussion is the importance of today’s interest, from the markets and people, in functional foods, tailor-made to suit specific groups (e.g. Health(y) food has also entered mainstream discussions in many countries and the idea of “let food be your medicine” (attributed to Hippocrates, 460-377 BCA) is again a popular concept. It has been argued convincingly that we should set aside a place for food and try to understand its health promoting effects ( Pieroni and Price, 2006). Ross led the ethnopharmacological discussion towards a (renewed) emphasis on the interface of food and medicine. Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since Nina Etkin and Paul J. As a result, we are unduly circumscribed in our understanding of the extra-nutritive aspects of food phytochemistry’’ ( Etkin and Ross, 1991, p. The conventional approach in ethnopharmacology is to focus on the medicinal properties of plants without adequately exploring other categories of use. “ … to draw the attention of ethnopharmacologists to the dietary dimension of plant utilisation. Conceptually foods and medicines are clearly distinguished but the intermediate group of health foods is more ambiguous. The most important general use-subcategories are as raw vegetables (27.43% of the use-reports and including 81 species), infusions (14.74%/42) and gastrointestinal (12.53%/42). The most frequently reported species are Jasonia glutinosa, Chamaemelum nobile, Prunus spinosa and Quercus ilex subsp. Overall, three core families were identified (based on the number of use reports and in the number of species): Asteraceae (25 species), Lamiaceae and Rosaceae (24 each). This highlights the important overlap between food and medicines. The two main groups with almost the same number of species each are health-food (75 species) and (locally gathered) food only (73), with medicinal uses only (36) being the smallest group. During interviews, 5658 individual use-reports were collected relating to three use-categories – as medicines, food and health-food. The informants recognise and use a total of 184 species from 49 families. The three categories were divided in 27 subcategories (common uses). In order to analyse the data three main categories of use were distinguished: Medicine (M), Food (F) and an intermediate Health-Food (H-F). This type of approach allows us to understand the way the informant’s categorize the species, and how these categories are distributed along the sample. The data were analysed based on the frequency of records. Using SPSS version 20 the gathered information was processed and the replies of the different informants were subsequently organised in variables like medicine and food plants, part of the plants used, forms of preparations, zones preferred for collecting these plants. 700 voucher specimens (most of them with duplicates) were collected for the data obtained. The basic interview was a one-to-one meeting, which often included field walking and collection of samples as directed by the informants. ![]() Ethnobotanical field work included 183 people, ages ranged from 24 to 98 years old with a majority being between 70 and 80 years old (mean age 71) from 31 towns of three different regions. ![]() A mixed methods approach, including participant observation open and semi structured interviews was used.
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