Consumption of Traditional Vegetables in Central and Northeastern Tanzania

The “nutrition transition” has reached developing countries and is contributing to a fast change in food habits there. Traditional vegetables (TV) are thus believed to have a declining importance in consumption. Our results show that the share of traditional vegetable consumption is much higher among poor households than among the wealthy households; and the variety in consumption of traditional vegetables is larger for poor households. Thus, particularly poor households rely on the consumption of traditional vegetables to fulfill their daily requirements of micronutrients, especially vitamin A and iron. More emphasis should be placed on promoting neglected traditional vegetable crops for nutritional health. This study was conducted within the framework of the Project “Promotion of Neglected Indigenous Vegetable Crops for Nutritional Health in Eastern and Southern Africa,” funded by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Bonn. We acknowledge support by Dr. M.L. Chadha, Dr. Mel...