Food of last resort
By Alemayehu Bekele
Ethiopian Review, October 2001
Last fathers’ day we had a family trip to Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and as we customarily do, we stopped at the restaurant for lunch and headed straight to the Regenteir fruit and vegetable garden. This particular day much activity was going on at the Botanic Garden, including “Herb Festival,” with herbal garden demonstration, landscape and herb garden tours as well as lectures and cooking demonstrations. Sitting in one corner of the herb garden was an elderly gentleman, expert in his own rights in herb gardening at the center. I had an interesting conversation with him about medicinal herbs and medicinal seeds that lead to talks about the subject of this writing.
It is well known that human consumption of grass-pea (scientific name “lathyrus sativus”) causes a form of degenerative nerve disease called lathyrism. This flowering legume popularly called “Guaya” in Ethiopia has been cultivated in many dry regions of the world from the Middle East to India and China for thousands of years. The plant thrives well in regions where other crops would not, growing under conditions of poor soil and prolonged drought. Grass-pea (guaya) is nutritionally rich with twice the protein content of wheat and has a high calorie content. Consumption of limited amount of grass-pea has also been credited for lowering blood pressure and possibly increases immunity against poliomyelitis. The entire plant has also been used for years as a nourishing domestic animal feed. The seeds that are mostly used for human consumption are either cooked into a protein-rich porridge or are ground for baking into a hearty bread or injera. Roasted seeds or even raw unripe grass-peas are often eaten for snack.
When consumed in small quantity, guaya is harmless, but in time of food shortage people make it a staple food and risk the paralysing disease “lathyrism” or “guaya yeseberew” in Amharic. The poison appears to have a cumulative effect as the damage to nerves occurs when grass-pea consumption exceeds 30% or so of ones caloric intake for an extended period of two or three months. The toxin in the grass-pea seed that causes paralysis is identified as an amino acid known by the daunting name of B-N-Oxalyl-L-alpha-B- diamino propionic acid (ODAP) and it comprises about one to two percent of the weight of the seed. As was previously noted, the medical name of the disease caused by over-consumption of grass-pea is lathyrism. Lathyrism manifests as a permanent spastic paralysis from the waist down with characteristic rigidity and scissors like gait. The affected person reverses to using canes in the early stages. In the worst cases, victims could get around only by crawling or creeping.
There have been three documented epidemics of lathyrism in Ethiopia in the last 50 years. One survey in 1976-77 identified 2600 people afflicted with the condition. The latest epidemic in North Western Wollo province of Ethiopia was in 1995-96 when a merciless drought wiped out most of the crops sparing only the grass-pea. In this epidemic, as was reported in the July 24, 1999, issue of the Lancet by Reda Teklehaimanot el al, 2000 people were affected. The peak occurrence of the epidemic in the month of May also coincided with the end of two months of fasting during which time Orthodox Coptic Christians fast from eating any food most of the day and completely abstain from animal products through out the fasting period which may last as many as fifty days. As has been experienced in India and Bangladesh, the disease mostly affects young men under the age of forty. This obviously contributes to a decline in productive work forces in rural villages. The prevalence of Neurolathyrism in non-epidemic times in affected regions of Ethiopia is estimated to be a low 1.7 per 10,000 population per year.
Ethiopian women by traditional wisdom have known the trick of minimizing the toxin content of the grass-pea by soaking it in hot water to render it less toxic. Heating is believed to reduce the potency of the toxin even though new data show that large portion of the poisonous amino acid can withstand the process of detoxification by heating to a great extent. Under drought conditions, the extra water and fire wood needed for boiling the peas is obviously hard to come by, too.
Availability of a non toxic highly nourishing grass-pea would have been a wonderful solution to the problem of lack of high protein high calorie legumes especially in times of drought. Legume experts around the world have been studying the problem for some time, and breeding and cultivation of virtually toxin-free grass-pea has already been accomplished by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Alepo, Syria. This break through announcement last summer, after 15 years of researching at a cost of more than a million dollars, promises a new grass-pea species offering the yield, taste and resistance to environmental ruggedness of the original plant. Similar research ventures and programs to produce low-toxin strains of grass-pea have also been under way in Canada.
Development of toxin-free seeds perhaps will win us half the battle. The remaining challenge, however, is getting the seeds out of the Research Center and dispensing the seeds so that they will reach the farmers hands. This is a daunting task as farmers are scattered far apart, working on hard to access small plots of land often engaging in a barter economy. Local governments should take a visibly active responsibility in facilitating mass cultivation and distribution as well as in educating farmers and consumers about nutritional values and safety of the seeds. But as it is noticed time and again, with the myriads of other social, environmental and economic problems, it is hard to interest governments that are chronically burdened by corruption, nepotism and mind-numbing bureaucracy. Private enterprises with humanitarian missions and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization could play a vital role in promoting the toxin-free grass-pea and thereby increase dry land food production. This will also reduce the humiliating cyclical charity food campaign for drought-prone areas.
Ultimately, lasting solutions to drought related problems lie in combating population explosion and restoring the balance between water use and supply.
______________________________________
Alemayehu Bekele, M.D., resided in the United States.