food security

MM_Flying booksFeb13

On Friday, August 4, 2017, from 7 until 9 PM, Pottersfield Press will be launching the latest book by Joan Baxter, “Seven Grains of Paradise: A Culinary Journey in Africa” at Mabel Murple’s Book Shoppe & Dreamery, which was opened in early July by the renowned Canadian author and children’s poet, Sheree Fitch, and her husband, Gilles Plante.

This is the first book launch to be hosted at Fitch’s immensely popular new bookshop at 286 Allen Road in the village of River John in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Fitch says she is pleased to host this event because Baxter is a “local writer and a friend” and she believes this book has “global significance.”

sheree book shoppeBaxter says she is “thrilled” to be launching this book, her sixth, in rural Nova Scotia, at a location she describes as “beyond magical,” thanks to “the incredible imagination, energy, enthusiasm and efforts that Fitch and Plante invested to create what is sure to become a major literary and tourism destination for the entire province, if not the entire country and beyond.”

She describes her book as a “celebration of African foods, farms, farmers, crops, cooks and cuisines.” And while it may fly in the face of many global media headlines, she says, “Africa has much to teach the world about healthy eating. Of the ten countries with the healthiest diets on earth, nine are African, some of them among the monetarily poorest nations on earth.”

Seven Grains of Paradise-Proof4.oct 25“Seven Grains of Paradise” draws on stories collected over the more than three decades that Baxter worked, lived and learned in Africa. It explores the riddle of a continent that is known more for hunger than for its rich and diverse foods and cuisines, and for having discovered and bred many of the staple foods and drinks consumed daily around the world.

The culinary journey of learning, eating and drinking takes readers from the fabled city of Timbuktu on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, to the diamond fields of Sierra Leone, from the savannah of northern Ghana to the rainforests of Central Africa.

It pays homage to the farmers, cooks and friends who schooled, guided and mentored her along the way.

“This is an eye-opening book that everyone should sturdy carefully to learn how so called advanced cutleries exploited and still exploit this natural rich continent. Highly recommended.” Professor Hrayr Berberoglum, Winesworld Magazine

Baxter says the book doesn’t shy away from the very real problems of food insecurity, hunger or malnutrition brought on by conflict, poverty, unfair trade and climate change, which today plague not just Africa but many other parts of the world.

“While the book focuses on the immense potential of family farming and locally produced food in Africa, it also documents the growing risks they face,” she says.

 

The author visiting the farm of Martin Kamara (right) in Gbematambadu, eastern Sierra Leone. Photo credit: Theophilus Gbenda

About the author: Joan Baxter is a Nova Scotian journalist, science writer, anthropologist and an award-winning author. She has written six books and many research reports on international development and agriculture in Africa. She has reported for the BBC World Service and contributed to many other media, including the CBC, Le Monde Diplomatique, Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, The Chronicle Herald.

 Seven Grains of Paradise: A Culinary Journey in Africa is available at bookstores in Canada, or online at:

Paperback & Kindle Edition:

Chapters Indigo: http://bit.ly/2vFrjES

Amazon (Canada): http://amzn.to/2gZNC4K

Kindle Edition only:

Amazon (International): http://amzn.to/2vWUkuY

Paperback only: Nimbus Publishing (distributor) http://bit.ly/2tWoBIX

 

Read more

BY Joan Baxter

July 12, 2017

(This article is the first of two adapted excerpts from the book, Seven Grains of Paradise – A Culinary Journey in Africa, available in print and Kindle edition at Amazon.ca, as an e-pub globally from Amazon.com and Kobo, and in print in Canada from Nimbus.)

Seven Grains of Paradise-Proof4.oct 25Type “Why is Africa” into Google and these are the top four phrases with which it fills in the blank: “so backward,” “such a mess,” “so poor,” and “so underdeveloped.” Change the query to “Why can’t Africa,” and Google finishes that question with: “grow food.”

Depressing stuff, but it’s not Google’s fault that such negative stereotypes abound. They go back many decades, if not centuries, and obviously still persist to shape online searches. And they’re as misleading and wrong now as they’ve always been.

First, Africa is an immense and diverse continent, which is no more “backward” (whatever that really means) or more of a “mess” than many other parts of the world. Many African countries may be monetarily poor, but the continent is enormously rich in culture and resources, and parts of it are catching up, if not surpassing, other more “developed” countries, depending, of course, what exactly we mean by development.

And as for the notion that Africa can’t grow food, that’s so far off the mark that it’s hard to know where to start to debunk it. But I’ll try. In 2015, a landmark study that examined diets in 187 countries around the world in 1990 and again in 2010 found that nine of the ten healthiest were in West African nations. Continue reading Celebrating Africa’s food and farmers

Read more

BY Joan Baxter

Ma Coulibaly selling fresh okra in the Medina Market in Bamako, Mali (photo by Joan Baxter)

Ma Coulibaly selling fresh okra in the Medina Market in Bamako, Mali (photo by Joan Baxter)

It certainly flies in the face of an awful lot of stereotypes and headlines about hunger and malnutrition, but it turns out that Africa has much to teach the world about healthy eating.

A 2015 study published by The Lancet Global Health journal looked at the consumption of food (both healthy and unhealthy items) and nutrients in 187 countries in 1990 and then again in 2010. The aim was to determine which countries had the world’s healthiest diets.

It found that none of the healthiest ten diets is in a wealthy Western nation, nor are any in Asia. Most were found in Africa, which is so often portrayed as a continent of constant famine in need of foreign know-how and advice on how to eat and to grow food.

And yet, of the ten countries with the healthiest diets on earth, nine of them are African.

What’s more, the three countries with the very best diets are some the world’s poorest. Chad, ranked as having “very low human development”, 185th of 188 nations on the United Nations 2015 Human Development Index, has the world’s healthiest diet. After that come Sierra Leone and Mali, 181st and 179th on the same Index. Continue reading Looking for healthy eating? Go to Africa!

Read more