South America

Innovative food products containing new ingredients have been designed to meet nutritional needs and new consumption trends. In this way, different vegetable species, named unconventional food plants (UFPs), are being studied in the literature and are emerging as candidates to provide foods containing a better composition, providing greater healthiness. Furthermore, specific vegetable tissues discarded in post-harvest and/or industrial pre-processing operations can be considered UFPs adequate for human consumption.

This chapter aligns with UN SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities) and SDG 15 (Life on land) describing the historical and ethnographic description of the Krenak, the indigenous people who inhabit the left margins of the Rio Doce river and the conflicts they have experienced in their territory over the years and how the Rio Doce mining disaster impacted their lives.