ABC Report 5/9/07

Study finds native fruits help fight diseases

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Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 05/09/2007

Reporter: Mike Sexton

In recent years connoisseurs have enjoyed the increased availability of Australian native foods such as wattle seed, Kakadu plum and bush tomatoes. Now there's scientific evidence to further encourage their use. According to a study by Food Science Australia, some native fruits have exceptional levels of anti-oxidants that are used by the body to fight diseases. For indigenous population, the results confirm what they have known for generations - that bush tucker is good for you.

Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN: In recent years chefs and connoisseurs have made increasing use of Australian native foods like wattle seed, Kakadu plum and bush tomatoes.

Now there's scientific evidence to further encourage their use.

According to a study by food science Australia some native fruits have 'exceptional' levels of anti-oxidants that are needed by the body to fight disease.

For Indigenous Australians the results confirm what they've known for generations- that bush tucker is good for you. But it may also provide a further boost for a fledging industry.

Mike Sexton reports.

MIKE SEXTON: Although native fruits have been growing in this country for thousands of years, most Australians would struggle to name one.

But that could all be about to change with new science showing Indigenous fruits could be among the healthiest foods on the planet.

IZABEL KONCZAK, FOOD SCIENCE AUSTRALIA: They are packed with very healthy compounds, something which probably would help us to stay healthy and live longer I hope.

MIKE SEXTON: When it comes to measuring the health benefits of fruit, comparisons are usually made with the blueberry, which is known as a super fruit due to the high level of anti-oxidants which the body uses to fight disease.

These are Illawarra plums. They grow on pine trees in NSW and Queensland and like blueberries, their sweet flavour can be used for a range of desserts.

IZABEL KONCZAK: If we cut this fruit in half we find that it is packed with pigment.

MIKE SEXTON: Research into the health benefits of Illawarra plums in being led by Isabel Konczak at Food Science Australia, a joint venture of the Victorian Government and the CSIRO.

Since emigrating from Poland eight years ago, she has become fascinated with Indigenous foods and her work suggest there are at least a dozen Australian super fruits.

ZABEL KONCZAK: This plum, is three times stronger in anti-oxidant activity than our sample of blueberry.

YVONNE LATHAM, CSIRO LAND AND WATER: This one is lemon myrtle. It is a rainforest species from northern NSW. It's got high citral content, beautiful lemon aroma.

MIKE SEXTON: You don't have to convince Yvonne Latham of the important properties of bush tucker. As a Nunga woman from Western Australia, she has long believed in the properties of native foods. Now as a project officer for the CSIRO, she oversees bush tucker projects in three states including here at Moonta on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula.

YVONNE LATHAM: Our project initially focused on the cultivation of the native plant food species trying to find out which plant grew where, successfully. So much more research needs to be done. It feels like we are just touching the surface.

MIKE SEXTON: Native food is a boutique industry at best and for the CSIRO it is important to find out how to grow bush tucker in commercial quantities.

MAARTIN RYDER, CSIRO LAND AND WATER: There is not a lot of coordinated knowledge about what grows where. People have done it by trial and error. We are also still doing trials. It's trial and error still and the mountain pepper plants that we put in here at Moonta here died out after about a year. So they are not going to grow here.

MIKE SEXTON: One of the fruits under cultivation is the Muntry which has a spicy apple flavour and is loaded with anti-oxidants. But Muntry bushes are not the thing of horticulturalists' dreams. They are slow growing little shrubs that only produce small amounts of fruit. But they are tough.

MAARTIN RYDER: All of the things we grow still need water, rainfall or irrigation to produce a crop, but in terms of surviving drought conditions, some of the arid zone plants are very good at surviving those conditions until the next rains.

MIKE SEXTON: But for the Muntry and other native food, it is that very battle to survive that could be the reason for its health benefits.

IZABEL KONCZAK: Plant cells exposed to stress produces anti-oxidants, produces compounds which will help the cell to survive. Those compounds are good for the plant's health and fortunately, they are also good for us.

ANDREW FIELKE, AUSTRALIAN NATIVE FOOD INDUSTRY LTD: There is a huge lack of awareness or understanding about the native food ingredients and what to do with them.

MIKE SEXTON: When he isn't filleting barramundi, Andrew Fielke chairs the new Australian Native Food Industry Limited and believes the research on anti-oxidants will stir more interest in bush tucker particularly from overseas.

The veteran chef believes more science needs to be done to take native foods out of the novelty basket and into the mainstream.

ANDREW FIELKE: To get them fully recognised internationally as legitimate foods, there has to be more work done on establishing the toxicology and all those health benefits and that. Whether it is anti-oxidants or vitamins or whatever and get all that information really done professionally now and put to those international bodies so these foods are recognised.

MIKE SEXTON: While the world waits for a stamp of approval, Izabel Konczak isn't. She will continue slicing and blending and building a scientific profile of Australian's super fruits.

IZABEL KONCZAK: We feel we are bringing something new. I would say we are discovering something which already exists here and just we are finding new value of those foods.

KERRY O'BRIEN: And offering us more and more choices. Mike Sexton with that report.