The Great Food Myth:
Why Do Foods From The Rain Forest Matter?
Were you surprised at the number of foods that
originally come from the rain forest? Some people call
the rain forest "the super market of the world"
because of the variety of foods it has produced. The
list you saw was only a partial list. There are many
other rain forest products for us to learn about. Variety is the key reason why
the rain forest is so important to the world's food supply.
The "parent" plants of many foods originally came from the rain forest. Even though those foods now grow elsewhere in the world, it's important to keep the "parent" plant around in case we ever need to re-create the plant. Why would we need to do that?
If a plant ever gets wiped out by disease we may lose the parent plant and the "recipe" for that plant would be gone. Can you think of a real-life example of when a plant was wiped out by disease?