Abstract
Llayta is a dietary supplement that has been used by rural communities in Perú and northern Chile since pre-Columbian days. Llayta is the biomass of colonies of a Nostoc cyanobacterium grown in wetlands of the Andean highlands, harvested, sun-dried and sold as an ingredient for human consumption. The biomass has a substantial content of essential amino acids (58% of total amino acids) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (33% total fatty acids). This ancestral practice is being lost and the causes were investigated by an ethnographic approach to register the social representations of Llayta, to document how this Andean feeding practice is perceived and how much the community knows about Llayta. Only 37% of the participants (mostly adults) have had a direct experience with Llayta; other participants (mostly children) did not have any knowledge about it. These social responses reflect anthropological and cultural tensions associated with a lack of knowledge on Andean algae, sites where to find Llayta, where it is commercialized, how it is cooked and on its nutritional benefits. The loss of this ancestral feeding practice, mostly in northern Chile, is probably associated with cultural changes, migration of the rural communities, and very limited access to the available information. We propose that Llayta consumption can be revitalized by developing appropriate educational strategies and investigating potential new food derivatives based on the biomass from the isolated Llayta cyanobacterium.
Highlights
The abundance and diversity of organisms in the Atacama Desert are severely limited by the high levels of desiccation and ultraviolet light [1,2]
This work was based on the following considerations: (i) Llayta consumption is a feeding practice transmitted through generations in the rural Andean world of South America, without reports of adverse effects on human health; (ii) Llayta consumption is an old culinary legacy that is disappearing in regions of South America; (iii) Llayta is a nutritional ingredient containing essential amino acids (58% of total amino acids) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (33% total fatty acids); (iv) the prevalence of undernourishment in South America; (iv) Llayta consumption can be revitalized with appropriate educational strategies and new food derivatives can be developed from the biomass of the isolated cyanobacterium from Llayta [4,9,18,19]. We propose that this microethnographic approach will help us to explore explanations for an apparent decrease in Llayta consumption, and to provide arguments and suggestions for the revitalization of this feeding practice
The microethnographic study on Llayta was designed to learn about the direct or indirect knowledge people have about Llayta by collecting social representations [20] from interviewing participants, including drawings prepared by children
Summary
The abundance and diversity of organisms in the Atacama Desert are severely limited by the high levels of desiccation and ultraviolet light [1,2]. In the Andes Mountains highlands, biodiversity is higher and plants have been used for centuries by local communities for feeding, foraging and ethnomedicine [3,4,5,6,7,8]. Microalgae and cyanobacteria are part of the Andes biodiversity but seldom acknowledged. Based on their nutritional and digestive benefits, microalgae and cyanobacteria (i.e., Chlorella, Dunaliella, Arthrospira and Nostoc) have been part of the human diet in South America, North America, Asia and Africa. In South America, an indigenous foodstuff harvested in the Andes wetlands, known as Llayta, is the dry biomass of macrocolonies of a cyanobacterium from
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