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The Debates on genetically modified foods (GMF), the bovine spongiform encephalopathy, (BSE) and dioxin contaminated food, have seriously raised the issue of nutrition as it is related to health. Today, consumers are more demanding when it comes to food products. They ask for a pleasant and appetizing food that presents no hazards to their health.
The development of biological products is an answer to these new demands. The development of biological food industry is remarkable. In a recent study (1) the FAO, has estimated that this increase has reached 25% per year, in the last decade in the EU. If this increase is maintained, the Market share of biological agriculture in the Union will reach between 10 and 30 % in 2010.
Beside this bio products craze, we also notice, on the market, the rise of another tendency represented by ‘functional' foods, which are supposed to have benefits for health, beside their nutritive value. Functional nutrition, which is constituted of enriched products, seems to have real potentialities in terms of both the increase in food industry and the preservation and improvement of health care. The debate is thus open within the society in order to know, as far as jurisdiction is concerned, under which category we can classify foods which are situated at the limit between food and medicines.
These two tendencies introduce some discrepancies in the food sector and can mislead the less or non-informed customer, in the absence of precise health regulations. Nutritionists maintain that the best solution remains a balanced diet. The simplest is a healthy nutrition based on natural products.
For the populations of North Africa, couscous, with meat and vegetables, has always constituted a good and healthy dish. Wheat or barley couscous and vegetables contain protective substances, some vitamins, fibers and many other nutriments. We have to deplore the waste caused, during the last decades, by the refining of cereals which substituted white flour for the original whole product which, because of its fibers content, used to both regulate weight and alleviating hunger.
More awareness is drawn towards the necessity to return to traditional land products. Whole wheat bread and some derivations of barley (barley flakes and couscous) are more and more demanded. European and North African industrials are anticipating some big opportunities and starting to elaborate new offers that will be adapted to the new customer demands.
In the French market, we find presently a product called ‘Saksou Al Balboula' manufactured by a Moroccan firm (2). This product which is made of barley semolina reminds us of the good old days, when our grand mothers used to prepare couscous with great dexterity and pain. This couscous is served with vegetables or buttermilk, named BELBOULA or Tchicha, that we used to eat with delight. It is in some sort our own Proust's ‘madeleine' . This was far back in history. Today home-makers rarely engage in preparing barley couscous. Both the hard work and the time it takes for preparation are dissuasive.
We have, thus, to salute this innovative initiative taken by a company which reconcile us with an ancestral product and allows home-makers to prepare a variety of couscous of high nutritional benefits. The numerous dietetic qualities of barley are recognized, and today they are the origin of a craze for the products that are derived from this cereal. Nutrition institutions underline the benefits of fibers and of ‘hardy starch', found in cereals and particularly in barley, whose function is to regulate glycaemia, bowel movements and blood cholesterol.
Beside the ‘bio' movement and the functional products, there is certainly room for other products that have been praised through out the years. Saksou El Belboula is the best example of these products. Not only it has the qualities of the bio and the functional, but also loads of affection to the land and a particular nostalgia .
(1)
FAO, Influence of biological agriculture on the harmlessness and the quality of nutrients, May
2000
(2)
The company is called “Société DARI COUSPATE” whose headquarters are in Salé , Morocco . It is specialised in the production of couscous .
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