Your cactus salad is more sustainable than you thought
The way we feed ourselves is no longer sustainable, we have been told for years, but we continue to push the planet to the limit with our daily decisions. For this reason, FAO – the United Nations agency that guides an international effort to end hunger and foresee food crises that may come in the future due to climate change – is turning to see foods that can help us. One of the candidates that we have to take into account is the cactus.
Although it is very common to eat it in Mexico, – we consume an average of 6.4 kilos per person per year, according to the UN – it is not really a common product in other places. But since 2017, FAO is making an effort to educate communities affected by the drought of the cultivation of this cactus. This is because the cactus is from the family of the cactus, and therefore its cultivation requires little water, whose shortage is precisely one of the crises that lie ahead.
But FAO is not the only one recommending nopal cultivation, the World Wide Forum for Nature (WWF) has teamed up with Knorr to create a list of the 50 foods of the future , “a series of crops selected because of their nutritional value. , accessibility, flavor and low environmental impact “.
For Mexico, they selected 17 crops, among which are vegetables such as watercress, spinach, nopal, kale and pumpkin flower; tubers such as jicama and sweet potato; legumes such as black beans, beans and lentils, and cereals such as quinoa, amaranth, and wild rice.
The next time you are eating your cactus salad, remember that this is one of the foods of the future.
Source: foodandwineespano
The Mazatlan Post
