Ifeoluwapo Amao

By Ifeoluwapo Amao

A fruit is defined as the edible part of a plant that consists of the seeds and surrounding tissues, while vegetables are plants cultivated for their edible parts. Fruits and vegetables are important sources of micronutrients and dietary fibres and are components of a healthy diet, which help in preventing major diseases. Due to the fact that fruits and vegetables have health promoting properties, they contribute to dietary guidance. This chapter defines the basic concepts related to health benefits of fruits and vegetables, reviews the previous literature on health benefits of fruits and vegetables and enumerates the health benefits of some common fruits and vegetables. It also examined the dietary recommendation of fruits and vegetables in less developed countries as well as present situation of fruits and vegetables consumption with particular reference to sub-Saharan Africa.

Part of the book: Vegetables

By Ifeoluwapo Amao

Horticultural crops refer to fruits, vegetables, spices, and ornamental and medicinal plants which are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. Rapid urbanization and migration of rural populace to the more industrialized city center has led to poverty, malnutrition, low and insecure incomes, ill-health and other livelihood problems. These problems are mostly seen among the people residing in urban areas who have migrated from rural areas. Urban horticulture ensures food and nutrition security, healthy environment and sustainable livelihoods, employment generation, among others. As such, this chapter carried out an empirical review of the state of urban horticulture in cities across sub-Sahara Africa. This is to enumerate ways whereby the benefits of urban horticulture can be specified in the region. It concluded that governments in the different countries need the political will to actualize identified benefits of urban horticulture. The chapter then recommends sensitization of the pertinent stakeholders in countries across sub-Saharan Africa on the benefits of urban horticulture. Such stakeholders include politicians, policy makers and urban households. This is in order to integrate the concept into urban land use planning while carefully considering sustainability of the environment.

Part of the book: Urban Horticulture