Survey Study Of Spontaneous Wild Leafy Vegetables Consumed By The Indigenous Batwa People Living In The Equatorial Forest Near The City Of Mbandaka/DR Congo

Abstract

This work focuses on the importance of leafy vegetables consumed in 3 localities BOLENGE, BANTOY and BOYEKA 1 and BOYEKA 2 located in the equatorial forest near the city of Mbandaka (DR Congo). The objective of this study is to identify the main spontaneous leafy vegetables gathered by the indigenous Batua people and to carry out a food and nutritional characterization. On the one hand, an ethnonutritional survey on eating habits was conducted among this indigenous Batua population, consumers of spontaneous leafy vegetables. The leafy greens that were investigated are: Ipomea batatas (L) Lam , Solanum aethiopicum L., Talinum triangulare ( jacq ) Wild, Amaranthus viridis L.; Hibiscus Sabdariffa , Manihot esculenta L. Grantz , Colocasia esculanta (L) Schot , Cecropia concolor miq , Lasimonda senegalensis schott , Erythroccoca atrovinens (Pax) Prain , Celosia trigyra L. On the one hand, a survey was conducted among 200 households with reference to some ethnonutritional data on the use and consumption of these leafy vegetables. The results reveal that these leafy vegetables are consumed in descending order by adults whose average age is over 40 years old (50.5%), followed by people whose age is between 30 and 40 years old (32%) and young people whose age is less than or equal to 30 years (17.5%). From the education point of view of the respondents, the most represented class is made up of people with no schooling (50%), followed successively by those with secondary schooling (25%), primary (23.5%) and higher (1 .5%). The socio-demographic analysis reveals that females are the majority consumers of these spontaneous vegetables (52.5%) against (47.5%) males in the 3 villages. The marital status of respondents reveals that married people are the most represented (60.5%). Slightly more than a third of people surveyed (34%) work as a lumberjack. The average percentage of consumption of leafy vegetables of these three villages ( Bolenge , Bantoy , Boyeka ) reveals that the population of Bolenge consumes more leafy vegetables (15.32%) compared to Bantoy (11.9%) and Boyeka (5.36%). Endogenous knowledge of the virtues of three most consumed leafy vegetables ( Ipomea batatas (L) Lam , Solanum aethiopicum L., Talinum triangulare ( jacq ) Wild) in the three villages, reveals that the population of Boyeka presents a higher knowledge (39.3%) than Bantoy (24.66%) and Bolenge (14%). It is observed that knowledge of the nutritional value of leafy vegetables does not correspond to the consuming population of the village, except in the Bolenge village.Mots clés : chenilles, éléments minéraux, micronutriments, insectes comestibles, oligoéléments