Kenyans return to nutritious traditional vegetables

By Duncan Mboyah

It is Saturday morning and people are flocking into a makeshift open-air market along bus station near the city centre.

Many of the shoppers have parked their cars along the narrow street and are selecting the leafy vegetables, almost making movement to other road users impossible.

"The number of customers has increased tremendously in the past few years and I am making good sales," says Jacinta Kemunto, a vegetable vendor at the market.

Kemunto, who transports her vegetables from the Kisii highlands in Nyanza Province, attributes the high demand for traditional vegetables to the increasing popularity of fresh greens grown in the natural environment.

The scenario is similar to what goes on in Uganda where Nakawa and Nakasero markets in the outskirts of Kampala city are crowded with people buying the once abandoned traditional vegetables.

Primitive

"The people have realised the importance of local vegetables as opposed to previous beliefs that those consuming them were primitive," says Dr David Hafashimana, a senior research officer with Uganda National Forestry Resources Research Institute.

Hafashimana says that markets and restaurants in Kampala and other major towns in Uganda are doing roaring business following a sudden change in attitude towards the vegetables. "The fact that our grandfathers consistently ate the traditional vegetables and rarely became ill is an indication that the vegetables are not outdated but more medicinal," he explains .

An Ethnobotanist at Diversity International, Patrick Maundu, says that even though preference for exotic vegetables like white cabbage, Swiss chard (spinach beet) and kale (sukuma wiki) still exists, high levels of minerals and vitamins in traditional vegetables is attracting more consumers.

The vegetables are high in micronutrients that is capable of protecting people from contracting anaemia and blindness as well as helping in protecting 42.2 per cent of children in sub-Sahara Africa from risk of Vitamin A deficiency.

Maundu says that traditional vegetables, unlike the exotic species, have a better ability to cope with climate change, pests, water stress and diseases. "They are also a major source of income for people who grow them in plenty," he says.

The vegetables have the potential for value addition and also extraction of oil from the seeds. He says vegetables like pumpkin leaves, cowpea leaves, okra, bean leaves, corchorus (mlenda) leaves, cassava leaves, moringa and desert date should be dried and sold either in powder form or chopped. Prof Abukutsa-Onyango says bitter vegetables have medicinal properties.

— AWC Feature