著者

YAMAMOTO Sota KAWANISHI Motohiro NISHIMURA Satoru

出版者

日本熱帯農業学会

雑誌

Tropical Agriculture and Development (ISSN:18828450)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.59, no.4, pp.170-178, 2015

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It is considered that a "traditional" diet based on staple starchy crops and marine resources has been replaced by a "modern" diet in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). However, research on FSM dietary patterns has previously been short-term in nature; diet has not been surveyed over a full year. Therefore, a detailed study of household food consumption at every meal for 12 months was conducted to discover present dietary patterns on Piis-Paneu Island, Chuuk Atoll, in the FSM. We compared our data to those of previous studies in an effort to understand real food behavior in the FSM. People on Piis-Paneu Island often consumed imported food, especially rice, canned fish, and instant noodles. However, they also often consumed local resources, including breadfruit, banana, Cyrtosperma merkusii, fish, and other marine resources. Moreover, they still cooked Alocasia macrorrhizos in a traditional manner, to remove calcium oxalate. A. macrorrhizos is a form of famine food that is plentiful on the island. Dietary patterns on Piis-Paneu Island seem to be basically "traditional", but incorporate "modern" food, rather than being intermediate between "traditional" and "modern". Breadfruit is often emphasized as a very important crop in Chuuk State or Micronesia in general, but it is noteworthy that the fast growth and stable production of banana throughout the entire year supports subsistence on small islands of the FSM.

著者

YAMAMOTO Sota KAWANISHI Motohiro NISHIMURA Satoru

出版者

日本熱帯農業学会

雑誌

Tropical Agriculture and Development (ISSN:18828450)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.59, no.4, pp.161-169, 2015

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Before the 1950s, the population of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) consumed a traditional diet based on starch staple crops and marine resources. This began to be replaced by a modern food in the 1960s and this phenomenon accelerated after a Compact of Free Association was signed between the FSM and the United States in 1986. Previous researches on dietary patterns in the FSM were undertaken only for a very short-period and they did not indicate the dietaries for the whole year. Therefore, a detailed study of household food consumption for every meal over a period of 18 months was conducted to understand the dietary patterns of the inhabitants of Pingelap Island, Pohnpei State, the FSM. Inhabitants of Pingelap Island were partially dependent on imported rice, but they all consumed banana, breadfruit, mweiang (Cyrtosperma merkusii; giant swamp taro), and fish obtained locally at a high frequency. Breadfruit was available seasonally, so the frequency of its consumption fluctuated, and consumption of banana and mweiang increased depending on the availability of breadfruit. The consumption frequencies of imported fresh meat, canned fish, and canned meat were very low. These observations suggest that the dietary patterns on Pingelap Island resemble traditional diets, with a reliance on food available locally and favorable for food security.