In the nourishment of the population of poor countries is usually always dominates one of any product that attaches to the diet of monotonous character and has a negative impact on overall health.
Such as rice, which occupies among cereals first place in calories. This fact is an important argument in favor of its indispensability. In the countries of South and Southeast Asia, where rice - a traditional food product, its share in the diet is 75%, and in some areas in Indonesia even more.
For savannah zone and sub-Saharan Africa are most common millet crops (mainly sorghum), yielding up to 40 to 50% of calories. However, it is recognized that they are not able to maintain the food balance, because in lean years the famine becomes widespread. In the diet of the inhabitants of the forest zone of the African continent is dominated by tubers - yam, manioc (cassava), sweet potato. These crops produce relatively high yields, but in the places of their cultivation and consumption are usually found malnutrition and severe protein deficiency (in 1 kg of sweet potato contains 1,200 calories and only 24 grams of protein).
Painting Power of Latin America's more colorful. In countries with relatively good food balance (Argentina, Uruguay, and others.) Forms the basis of the diet of wheat; in Central America and parts of the Indian settlement prevails corn; on the tropical coastal lowlands - rice; Paraguay - cassava; in the "banana" republics of the American "isthmus" - bananas; Haiti and Cuba - cane sugar, and so on. d.
Of certain interest is the picture of specific regional food types. At the time, it drew the attention of Russian geographer Voeikov. "Secure" and characterize these types of scientists have tried many times. American geographer G. Keriel made ??a map (see the. Map on the second fly-leaf) and the corresponding thereto legend (Table. 9), where for each geographical "type of food" have the main sources of calories (regardless of their absolute number) and the main sources of protein.
Border isolated G. Kerielom types do not coincide with the boundaries of the states for which FAO outputs statistically average diets. Often within the same country there are various types of regional power (China, India, Russia, Canada, Brazil, South Africa, etc..) Or one type occurs in a variety of countries (Southwest Asia, Southern Europe, etc..). This suggests the need for further regional geographers study the food problem.
Regional types of food