There is no intrinsic reason African countries should be importing, rather than exporting, basic staples like rice or higher value products like frozen chicken, cooking oil, or instant noodles.
Sweetcorn, mushy peas, beans, lentils, are all basic staples that can be thrown together into a variety of surprising meals.
I was raised almost entirely on turnips and potatoes, but I think that the turnips had more to do with the effect than the potatoes.
Most of us cannot afford to store a year's supply of luxury items, but find it more practical to store staples that might keep us from starving in case of emergency.
If we went back to the basics of vegetables, legumes, grains - the things closer to the Earth - it's a lot better for the Earth and for other people. We can feed more people, we can feed the starving people.
My eating mantra is, you should eat what your ancestors ate. It's true that the quality of vegetables, fruits and meat is of no comparison from then to now, but in principle the staple is easily digestible if it was part of your evolution lineage.
I basically have the diet of a 19th-century Irish navy, apart from the litre of stout a day. It's meat and potatoes and bread and cheese: those are my four food groups.
Mexican food is far more varied than people think. It changes like dialects. I was brought up in Jalisco by the sea on a basic diet - tomatoes, chillis, peppers of every size and rice, which is a Mexican staple. The Pacific coast has a huge array of seafood.
