Protein extracted from leafy crops is potentially the most abundant protein concentrate. It is an acceptable complement to green vegetables cooked in the normal manner, and it replaces oil-seed products and fishmeal in animal feeds. It is so easy to make, and its value as a source of protein and vitamin A is so obvious in human feeding trials, that it is surprising that it seems not to have become part of the culinary tradition anywhere. It is now slowly gaining recognition as an animal feed.
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Find Your Feet (fyf), a registered charity, collects money from various sources and finances many leaf protein projects. The death of Find Your Feet's chairman Carol Martin in February 1989 was a grave misfortune, but its work goes on. fyf's new address is 318 St Paul's Rd, London n1 2lf, and Sue Stoessl is now the chairman. Carol Martin's book All Crass Is Flesh, which describes her difficulties and successes in coping with official obstruction, is in the press. There are now four fyf projects in Bolivia; three more are planned. Some of the locally produced lp is sold and some is eaten regularly by about 300 children. Two units are working in Mexico, and there is interest in starting production in 50 villages. With support from the Commission of European Communities, fyf/uk and fyf/usa, there is daily production of 2–3 kg of lp in Nicaragua. Again, some is sold and some supplied to children in institutions. Two feeding projects in India have been running for several years; a third, in Orissa, started recently. Sarvodaya, a long-established national organisation working with the poor in Sri Lanka, has taken over responsibility for making and using lp in its national network of pre-schools. The nutritional effect of this is being studied by a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with support from the Overseas Development Agency. This is precisely the sort of development we hoped for. fyf should be an initiating body and should not be permanently responsible for projects.
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