Lentils: A Miracle Of Nutrition [Full Documentary]

[Music] lentils are the humble pearls of the earth you need a second glance to see this tiny pulses potential as a miracle of nutrition we call it Malta we call it Masood we eat it whole and we eat it shelled but it is at the heart of all dishes lentils are proven to lower blood sugar I may even prevent cancer they are eaten mainly in poorer countries with a fast growing population but we eat lentils all year long without them we're nothing you can easily figure out that human population in 40 years went up 80% in the same 40 years lentil consumption went up 350 percent therefore everybody wants to eat more lentils how can the future need for lentils be fulfilled the fields are not getting any bigger and lentils growing regions that are severely affected by climate change climate is changing our crop is experiencing more frequent droughts more heat for that we have to bread varieties which are having resistance to drought and heat we have so developed technologies that are accessible and affordable affordable by farmers the most important affordable technologies high yielding and disease resistant varieties scientists worldwide are rising to the challenge breeding high yielding plants for those areas where lentils didn't grow properly in the past they penetrate deep into the genetic material of the tiny legume while others put their faith in ancient varieties making the wonder of the lentil accessible for humankind has become a race against climate change and demographic growth [Music] in the ethiopian region of our amaya conditions are perfect for growing lentils which are traditionally part of the local cuisine moderate heat during the first growth period followed by heat and dry weather ensure the seeds are ready for harvest by November deme cash Tecla johannes is a peasant farmer in the area of Campeche and like her ancestors has been farming lentils her entire life until a natural catastrophe destroyed her entire crop blooming so beautifully if I ask people to take off their shoes before walking through the field I remove the weeds myself to make sure no one else would walk over them but from one day to the next rust came over the plants and turned everything to ash everyone was affected many farmers abandoned their lands and moved away but how did Democrats manage to stay lentil plants can endure far drier climates than other legumes like chickpeas for example that way they can provide a stable food source in those regions where climate change has led to frequent droughts but in gambito climate change also brought the occasional rain and with it various fungal diseases among them this are called rust which destroyed the lentil harvest of 2005 on over 20,000 hectares [Music] Democrats too struggled to keep her family fed as the time approached for sewing new seeds agriculture researchers offered to help the Ethiopian government in the form of the newly developed rust-resistant the lentil variety Alamein the seeds of this robust and high yielding varieties yellow rather than red orange like the traditional Ethiopian lentil for this reason among others demócratas neighbors initially rejected the new crop until they saw the plentiful blooming plants all the farmers came to see my field they said a woman has outdone once I wasn't home at the time but when I came back loads of people had gathered I said I'm a woman why are you coming to me I should be the one going to your fields and learning from you men I teased them saying it's not proper for men to learn from a woman they still remember that battle much-needed help for Jim beaches peasant farmers came from this testing field and Abra's ate roughly 30 miles southeast of the capital Addis Ababa luckily the Ethiopian Institute of agricultural research er had already been experimenting with disease resistant lentils for several years with resources provided by the worldwide organization ekkada here legume farmer million machete tested the resistant lentils from the International breeding program through further crossbreeding with local strains to completely new and rust resistant crops could be developed the rust disease doesn't break out every year but in intervals of two to five years but once it hits it can destroy an entire harvest like it did two years ago in the noir e region and in Northshore affecting everyone farming the old local lentils the improved alum and strains however were once again unaffected without them all local farmers would have lost their harvest to the rust plunging the area into a severe food crisis the new and resistant yellow lentil has now been accepted into the kitchens of gambito demi cash is using them to cook the traditional Missa wat and swears by the lentil dishes healing powers yes lentils are very healthy they're very popular they're good for the stomach and the heart and they make you strong they have many advantages and sure enough her lentil puree together with some traditional injera flatbread adds up to a complete meal the body breaks down the protein and the grain and lentils creating essential amino acids the amino acids created by such a lentil and grain dish are exactly those 9 recommended for human nutrition both food products as well as lentils and whole grain rice complement each other perfectly meat which can be unaffordable for people in poorer countries is rendered obsolete perhaps that is why this combination can be found in the cuisine of all lentil farming cultures [Music] our modern cooking lentil the lens : eros is extremely versatile and colorful and yet it has mainly descended from one wild lentil strain from the Middle East the lens orientalis thanks to cave exhibitions in Greece and Morocco we know that lentil dishes go back as far as 13 thousand years there are six types in total [Music] people in the Middle East started cultivating the wild lends orientalis around 6,000 BC the late bronze age silver lentils being introduced to Egypt in Central Europe a short time after that they reached India and the Mediterranean Basin today the lends : Aris is grown mainly in areas with little humidity and mostly barren soil it's a plant of the dry regions and the dry season the lentil plant grows to about 20 inches in height and can flourish only away from excessive moisture and fertile soil exposed to such conditions the crop would be prone to developing too many leaves and only very few seed pods like all pulses the lentil is a Papillion Asia's flower [Music] every seat pod contains approximately one or two lentils a vile a yellowish brown color like the common lentil Green speckled like the French pre lentil all the small brown variety like the mountain lentil some varieties appear marbled or in the case of a beluga lentil black and round like caviar once the huskers removed the lentils are orange red or yellow all these varieties are small energy bundles and when cooked contain around 25% protein the only legume to contain more protein as the soy bean others like peas and most beans fall short additionally lentils are rich in fiber minerals trace minerals and vitamins [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] in the far north of the planet one place holds almost the world's entire genetic lentil range the global Seed Vault it was established in 2008 and is located at the edge of the former mining town of Longyearbyen it is there in the area of Spitsbergen that the biggest part of our agricultural heritage lies dormant at a constant minus 18 degrees Celsius the Norwegian government supports the world trusts project for crop plants behind these doors you have 865 thousand varieties or seeds from absolutely all over the world it's the product or the hard work of farmers for 13,000 years and it's also the future of Agriculture and you know when we lose genetic material around the globe in the real world for reasons of war or natural disasters it's just very very comforting to know that we can retrieve the material here and start afresh and produce the version that the world needs scientists call this gene vault a black box unlike other seed vaults the stores in Spitsbergen are not used for a search purposes they are safe kept for times of need like in 2015 when a card a first requested material from the seed vault part of that request with lentil germ plasm that was meant to establish a new gene bank in Morocco due to the ongoing war in Syria the Curtis central gene bank and a leper can only function at a limited capacity luckily a full copy of it stalls was transferred to the vault in Spitsbergen a few years ago nope at that time nobody could imagine the implications of a potential war now acarda needs to multiply the seeds even though acarda is still active in aleppo in order to respond to all the city requests we cannot multiply the seeds in Syria that's why we need to come and retrieve the seeds from our safety duplication here in Svalbard because it's the most fresh and the most complete safe duplication said that we have the opposite and so in September of 2015 an unremarkable vehicle starts its journey the cargo is made up of around 2000 old regional lentil varieties as well as wild strings many of which are already extinct in their region of origin its goal is the new ekkada center for international mental research in Morocco [Music] about half a year later in April of 2016 the seeds from Spitsbergen have grown into plants on the test fields ekkada which is mainly funded by wealthier industrial nations presides over the international mandate for research and improvement of dry region crops including the lentil two hours drive outside Morocco's capital Robert the foundation for a new gene bank is flourishing the mission of the gene bank is to set seeds to different requesters according to their needs so to do this we have to multiply the seed quantities that we retrieved from Svalbard to make our seed Lots be bigger and to characterize the material and to know the breeders for example what they really need for the research this is the place where traits are discovered and here discovered and there they are deployed in the breeding program these traits discovered here and applied there before we go for crossing before they evaluate on a repla replicated trials so that we understand that the trait is stable uniform and distinguished these three tests are very important for me to to to incorporate into my bidding line somewhere among the 2,000 varieties of lentils stored in Spitsbergen unlikely traits and resistances that one day will urgently be needed but how can scientists introduce new traits into old lentil strains in the past farmers simply used to pick the seeds of their strongest plants and used them for their next harvest furthermore only the plants that were most able to adapt would survive long enough to be chosen this natural and human process of selection led to local varieties lentil plants originally were unfit for crossbreeding like all lentil flowers those in the fields of Morocco are bisexual and thus able to pollinate themselves only about 1% of the flowers end up being pollinated by insects or strong winds how then do scientists trick nature into allowing the lentils to be crossbred if a lentil from the gene bank shows definite traits on the fields for example a resistance to rust it has moved to I card as research greenhouses here Shiv Kumar a gravel is working on transferring the crops beneficial characteristic to another high yielding variety this synthetic crossbreeding is called hybridization it's the first step in every lentil breeding process or even that of every self pollinating plant inside the lentils flower there are female carpals and male stamen in order to improve a lentil variety scientists remove the male parts shortly before the pollen mature that way self pollination can be prevented and a solely female flower is created in the next step the flower of the second variety the variety which has a desirable property is opened and used to pollinate the female flower which then proceeds to ripen and produce seeds the developed seed is planted and grows into the first hybrid plant and perhaps into the first generation of a new variety after 3 Jennison we put the population of the plant into rest arrest place there there is a lot of rust so the bun which is susceptible on those plants will killed only those which is having less resistance they will survive then only sieved is harvest from that particular plant not from the other one we take to selection criteria one that it must have the characteristic which is there in the female plants and then we just look for the resistance which we brought from the other one so the plant which is having the looking like female but having less resistance through that is screening and then that's how we fix that particular female plant having rest resistance back at the iCard a test fields near the moroccan capital robot plant pathologists assist the breeders and developing the resistant strains say it ahmed kamal and his colleague are closing in on destructive lentil diseases so far lab work in greenhouses can't get replaced the research opportunities offered by the fields however the ethiopian researcher will need his laboratory in order to determine which disease has damaged the crops on the fields and how it has affected the plants most interesting of course a village had survived completely unharmed since they may carry the desired resistant strain sometimes if the disease if the variety farmers are growing is not resistant to the disease they can lose totally their crop this is for example the outbreak of rust in Italy where thousands of hectares of land rose totally killed so this is how and then that's why we are targeting both yield and disease resistance are very critical in the car the breeding program this is how Kemal and his colleagues save entire harvests in their lab in rabat securing a modest wealth for the poorer families in the dry regions the efficiency of certain chemicals is also being tested by applying different standard fungicides to several petri dishes all containing the same fungal spores kemal measures how much the fungus has grown despite the chemical treatment in that way he can determine which substances most suited for which lentil variety chemical treatment however has always been second to crossbreeding on a card as list of priorities our major objective is to develop resistant varieties to put farmers because if you add pesticides or chemicals to them they can not die so that's why our major emphasis is to develop varieties resistant to two major diseases so that our poor farmers can benefit and also it's important for the environment the extreme weather conditions that climate change has introduced also affect the lentil plants directly most of all dryness and high temperatures the infrared camera measures the temperatures on the leaves giving a car to researchers an insight into how well certain crops can cope with the heat this septa meter measures the light beams the plant used for photosynthesis the less this light radiates of the plants the more sunlight has been processed but how can researchers determine how much dryness the new crossbreeds can withstand and when the answer lies in time-displaced planting many times we get only terminal doubts in that conditions if I have planted in different dates of planting then the the first experiment which I planted it might escape the drought the second one may get you know terminal drought the third experiment will get drought at the time of flowering so I can test that ok my plant or my variety is having tolerance at different states to doubt or not hidden beneath the soil a small lentil plant has an extraordinary ability it can absorb nitrogen from the air and with the help of a bacteria store it in its small room nodules in order to keep these fragile constructs intact the scientists remove the soil with the greatest care they're trying to determine how many such nodules the plant has developed this special trait is crucial especially for peasant farmers who can't afford to use artificial fertilizer the more nodules a new variety develops the more nitrogen remains in the soil where it acts as a natural fertilizer on average that amounts to 90 kilograms per hectare [Music] this improvement of the soil is one of the reasons why the farmers in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan introduced lentils into their 4 year crop rotation in the 1970s lentils can be planted on fields that would otherwise remain barren for an entire year only there very few months without Frost give the farmers in this Prairie a chance to work their fields and even though the small legume is rarely eaten in this part of the world Saskatchewan has become the planets lentil Treasury they are I guess maybe a poor man's protein you know you look at there's a lot of the world that is their cheapest source of protein but again as farmers you know it's it's great to think we're doing that but we are doing it for economics we're providing they have a need they need protein we have the ability to grow them and so in the market we are able to meet and we're able to make money and they have food so it's probably the best way to look at its being in in 2016 the provinces farmers harvested about 3.2 tons of lentils worth almost 2 billion euros almost entirely for the purpose of export by now more than half the world's traded lentils come from the Prairie of Saskatchewan but why Saskatchewan had a couple things go right farmers formed Saskatchewan post growers or which collects money to invest in lentil research we're successful in getting scientists that were really good at their job so we have a very strong lentil breeding program in this breeding program the American lentil varieties have been perfected to produce a higher yield as well as being harvestable by machines furthermore the Canadian scientists have tackled the weed problem which effects lentil farmers worldwide and usually has to be met with painstaking manual labor the fields of Saskatchewan now almost exclusively produced they're specifically engineered Clearfield lentils well the chemicals kill the weeds and don't hurt the crop I mean the thing with a Clearfield variety the lentils have by natural processes have a gene in them that allows them to process Emmy sprays doesn't kill them what yet it will kill the weeds so it just increases your ability to to clean up the crop with herbicides you know so it works out really well you get a higher yielding crop which ultimately at the end of the day higher yielding probably means cheaper food for someone it's kind of a choice do you want cheap food which most people want or do you want which you considered chemical free food they're both safe there's no question about it that you get conventionally growing crops are safe it just comes down to price and this is how the wide and controversial use of chemicals as well as the introduction of new lentil varieties have created a huge lentil industry in Saskatchewan all the lentils growing on Canadian fields hail from bat fund and box breeding program this makes him something like the father of half the world's lentil trade the lentil industry especially large-scale farmers are funding his professorship in lentil research numbers in the eight digits are invested on a yearly basis to keep the University of Saskatchewan spreading program running fighter train chambers allow the researchers to simulate time and temperature as needed which is crucial since the land outside only sees for frost free months per year like in the ekkada test fields in morocco the creation of a new variety starts with hybridization but when not too long ago it could take nine or ten years for a stable variety to be established the process can now be sped up by several years we can do that with using smaller containers applying a little bit of stress we can speed up the life cycle we've also in for research purposes we've also gone to a system where we can rescue the seeds at about 18 days after pollination treat them for a couple of days in a tissue culture flask and then we can plant them directly so we save another 30 days on the lifecycle we don't have to wait for the seeds to dry down the immediately start forming the next generation like any other living thing a lentil plants main function is to reproduce by applying stress which the plant can only barely survive they manage to grow a large number of small plants with quickly developing seeds with the strictest speed breeding a tiny plant has grown that will yield exactly one seed within only two and a half weeks genetic engineering is another way of speeding up the breeding process making use of so-called molecular markers the DNA molecule is like a zipper right so on a zipper you have two halves and they fit together nicely and that's in DNA that would be in a chemically bonded together in the case of it your zipper once in a while you find an annoying little thing where it doesn't match and so you always see that spot where the zipper is not fitting that happens in DNA too and it's very characteristics it reproduces itself so if you know the genetic code you can always tell where that where the zipper doesn't match and that's what we do with a molecular marker in the case of let's say herbicide tolerance if you find a planet that looks this way when the zipper is on one side or this way when the zipper has the other half you can always trace it it's these small irregularities within the DNA but allow us to determine molecular markers with great accuracy to find the markers scientists compared the genotype the DNA of different lentil varieties here they look for the irregularities that is the markers which are like signposts for them pointing to specific traits they only occur if the DNA contains specific genes this way a molecular marker always indicates that a specific trait is available in the genes thanks to this genetic engineering one lentil kernel is enough about funding Berg's colleague Kristin Brett to anticipate a breeds properties before even planting it she removes part of the husk and extracts a miniscule sample of a cotyledon the future seed leaf a liquid allows her to extract the DNA from the sample she wants to find out whether the seed could produce a plant resistant to weed killers a Clearfield lentil the scientists must be careful to preserve this trait while further developing the Clearfield variety only a small part of the DNA is inspected during this process the part that contains the molecular marker scientific progress is at a point where the entire generation of a breeding line can be quickly tested in regards to one trait that makes it a lot quicker because we can know before we put seeds in the ground what to expect and we aren't wasting as much time on individuals that have no hope of having the correct traits that we're interested in and so we can spend more time and more resources on the individuals that do have at least some of the traits were interested in and then we can that we have markers for and then the rest of it we can do in the field a computer program provides proof of the results every symbol represents a seed the blue ones will be disposed of the green ones are only partly tolerant of herbicides but the yellow ones are those that bat fundin berg and his team will later breed and observe in the university's test fields in 2016 Canadian scientists succeeded in sequencing the first complete lentil genome they have however no intention to artificially manipulated they want to apply their knowledge to finding more precise molecular markers and maybe even rediscover some of the lost traits of the wild lentils and plant them in their fields there is for instance disease resistances perhaps different nutritional profiles that are available within the wild species so it's genetic variability that we don't actually have within the cultivated species and by understanding the relationship between the two species at a molecular level you can better track what is happening and maybe get rid of the scary parts that would come from wild lentils for instance they shatter they have dormancy issues if we can identify the regions that have the bad characteristics then we can avoid those and at the same time bring in some of that new variability this is how the gene banks stored variety of lentil breeds can help make cultivated breeds more robust these plants might one day ensure a food source for those areas where climate change has brought about rapid changes a little outside Saskatoon the high yielding lentils from the Prairie are being husked during the harvest season the farmers hire huge trucks and drivers in order to bring the lentils directly to the mill prior to every delivery a sample determines the grade of contamination by stones and bits of plant this in turn determines the price the fully automatic husking Mills owner is working closely with the university's research team he hopes to find a way of repurposing those parts of the lentil that are left over after the husking process the seed coat it has about 22 antioxidants we can potentially move that into pharmaceutical industry to try to use utilize that product the germ that's inside the lentil which is only one and a half percent by weight is 69 percent protein and we have also figured out ways to recover this product and we have achieved values in the lab of up to forty five percent protein so there's many things that can be done that are currently not being done with every piece of the lentil in India the country second only to China in terms of population lentils are traditionally eaten peeled often the peeled lentils are even split in two in order to speed up the cooking process without this show lentils are cooked within only 10 minutes and thus probably the world's healthiest fast food this among other things is what makes the lentils so interesting for food conscious Europeans at the boeuf are the world's leading exhibition on ecologically grown foods one thing becomes clear lentils of a new trend for the vegan community they represent a food source which is rich in protein and therefore a valuable part of nutrition as a result a whole industry is trying to find new ways of processing the little legume at the beginning of 2016 Vandana Shiva holder of the Right Livelihood award introduced her new book on pulses it's a plea for reintroducing lentils into small farming structures and for their consumption diverse knowledge waiting where the proteins come from palaces and not from protein of soya 200 the value in meat Vandana Shiva's organization is called neva dunya which means nine seeds it promotes the organic farming of traditional crops all over India including lentils Shiva sees a great danger in importing lentils from Canada we are talking about a graph that will keep growing not only will the better pulses organically produced disappear but the dependency will be so huge that you need one bad year of climate and you're going to have an absolute disaster so we've got to get it right on pulses and lentils to get it right on everything else and how can a poison sprayed field be called clean field this double speak must end Vandana Shiva is a quantum physics graduate who grew up in Dehradun the capital of the West Indian province of Uttarakhand here at the foot of the Himalayas Shiva created her own organic farm 30 years on her organization neva dunya is applying specifically those scientific discoveries which defy popular practice the organization's aim is to create an ecological counterproposal to challenge the trend of industrialized farming this is why old lentil varieties are still farmed here without the use of chemicals Vandana Shiva is a harsh critic of the Indian agrarian reform the so called Green Revolution its main aim was to bring rice and wheat monocultures to the fields of India but it's led to the disappearance of local places like the lentil this loss of one of the most traditional food sources has created a growing supply gap which in turn allowed the Canadian lentil industry to develop Vandana Shiva's farm presides over a small community seed bank these seed banks are at the heart of the Indian organic farming movement with around a hundred and twenty locations all over the country local varieties of rice grain and pulses are stored here so that they can be returned to the farmers you can then once again breed them the difference between seeds bred for chemicals and a commodity tree globally and seeds bred by farmers with nature is first farmers breed for diversity they never breed a variety to be sold all over the world they breed 10 varieties for they found the wet part of the farm the dry part of the farm the part where they will grow this lentil and somewhere as they would that but so diversity is far as breeding while large seed banks only rarely plant their samples these local varieties are meant to permanently evolve on the fields the idea is to expose them to local weather conditions year after year so that they have a chance to adapt more successfully the thing about climate changes we don't know how it will change we know it is changing we don't know when a drought will come you don't know when too much rain will car problem is at best an engineer of a plant through genetic engineering or a breeder for industry of chemical inputs will change monotone traits you may be trapped but the year my next year might be a year of heavy planning that means your variety is going to fail more often uniformity is a recipe for failure a lot of traditional knowledge has been lost over the course of the Indian agrarian reform additionally many new discoveries have been introduced into organic farming the never done a farm runs an information and education center where farmers from all over the country especially women can learn about diverse crop rotation for example here we do breeding courses participate tree and evolutionary breeding the top scientists come and work with the top farmers so that the idea that farmers are brainless and brain-dead can be overcome and we respect the farmers intelligence like we respect the scientists intelligence and wherever farmers are committed and willing we are ready for support so now we working in more than 22 states more than a million farmers hundreds of thousands of varieties saved and we also help farmers shape and create a market for diversity for the organic products lentils one of India's most important staple foods here in Vandana Shiva home and there is an on a daily basis by a majority of the population prepare the so-called dull and eaten with flatbread they provide an ideal diet for poorer people here but while in ever done your organization is working hard to bring the lentil back to the fields the supply gap here and in many parts of the world is still enormous [Applause] [Music] the United Nations declared 2016 the year of pulses ekkada joined the effort by holding a conference of Marrakesh the Palais des congrès a becomes the meeting place for the creme de la creme of mental research everyone here has made it their career to work in the labs and fields to find a solution to world hunger the aim is no longer to only feed the people but also to breathe new lentil varieties that could tackle the hidden hunger malnutrition if we can improve the iron and gene content these are the two major micronutrients we said very much deficit in the in the food system in that part nor eastern India Bangladesh Nepal and if we can enhance that iron and gene content in lentils sate through genetic means and we give that varieties to the farmers then definitely it has a added value more than 30 35 % more iron and gene content we are looking for at least West Bengal in the east of India is one of the most densely populated and poverty-stricken regions in the country here to this new trend is hoping to bring an end to malnutrition which affects mainly women and children again ekkada is working closely with local scientists further improving altered lentil varieties from the International breeding program by farming them on test fields near the capital Kolkata the result is a variety of lentil breeds that have not only adapted to local conditions but are also rich in zinc and iron Koen almond dal is a farmer from the village of Mahesh were poor and he's just harvested such a new lentil variety however the fact that these lentils are more nutritious is of little interest to her it's another new trait which makes this crop so interesting to her and the other farmers of the village instead of the usual 120 days this new lentil variety takes only 90 days to mature this means that the rice fields around the village which used to line barren until the next season can now be put to use we never used to farm them instead we had rice rapeseed sesame or jute but nothing else since this is the first year we're planting the lentils we can't yet say whether or not we'll end up with a profit but this is something we're doing only for us we're not selling the crop we eat lentils 12 months a year without them were nothing now finally Kohinoor no longer needs to buy the lentils she uses for her daily dal meal and yet she can still farm all the crops she used to grow before like in Vandana Shiva organic movement more diversity has been introduced into the crop rotation by different means additionally Kohinoor now provides extra iron and zinc for her family with every meal speeding up the growth process has brought about immense change but how so what we do we do through crossbreeding the early type material crossing early type into early type to develop more super early type and we got success to do that farmers they will get an extra pulse crop for their know that household nutritional security and straw from lentils know is valuable animal feed who is and also when they grow lentil their soil is also getting benefited it's an opportunity know will be increased breeding projects that focus on the increase of micronutrients can now be found in many countries even the traditional Moroccan lentil soup in the streets of Marrakech may soon be even more nutritious than it already is this way specifically developed varieties can help to fight malnutrition and all those areas where lentils are a traditional food source [Music] [Applause] [Music] in Marrakesh the day and with it the international conference of lentil researchers is coming to an end high above the famous marketplace of Jame alpha now the leading lentil scientists have met up for a meal in one of the numerous restaurants more than 75% of the lentils traded worldwide come from bad funding bags and shivkumar of the world's breeding program whether the Herrera the traditional Moroccan lentil soup they're eating has been cooked using lentils from their labs or regional crops can no longer be determined but whether engineered or traditional the researchers agree on the certain superpowers of the small lentil in in Ethiopia before a wedding the bride and the groom are fed lentils for a week right because it's if it increases your sexual prowess and it's a right it's not this it's not just in Ethiopia you find the same tradition in Sri Lanka which is not even a producing country and you find it in North India you find it in several places later used to be eaten by the Kings King so it was the food for kings because I saw that they kept they used to have hundred vibes and other things about in Ethiopia the country of the lentil wedding dish scientific research has helped Democratic leader Hannes to become a wealthy farmer in her own right the high yielding and rust-resistant Aleman crop has not only provided enough food for her children but also money money to invest she's built herself a new house with new furniture and could even afford to send her children to better schools she's now also the proud owner of a small herd of cattle to be able to buy three oxen to plow the field is a big deal for me it's the same as being able to buy a plane can a poor man buy a plane no he can't but that's how precious they are to me it's like owning millions I have a new house and can afford to hire some help I couldn't wish for anything more and I'm very grateful [Music] scientists have opened the door to a better life for her and her family together they explore different paths to bring the lentil back to our fields and it may just take all these different paths to feed the world's growing population in times of climate change [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 1,047,191

Rating: 4.881865 out of 5

Keywords: lentils, diet, plant based, environment, nutrition, sustainability, food, meat, vegan, Vandana Shiva, gmo, superfood

Id: 1zzA9XA67ew

Length: 52min 20sec (3140 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/hillofjumpingbeans]

Indian moms funded this documentary

[u/[deleted]]

A 52 hour documentary about lentils? Man, I'm saving this one for the weekend.

[u/deathhead_68]

Lentils are so underrated. Cannot beat a good dahl makhani

[u/fuzzyshorts]

For all you folks saying you hate lentils, I said the same thing too. Had a bag for YEARS and never cooked them. But then I got my hands on some indian vegetable spice mix. That shit right there made all the difference. Now I sauté onions, garlic, tomatoes, I use chicken broth and water and the spice mix, add lentils (don't forget to wash them and check for stones) and in 20 minutes... BAM!

Eat 'em with a soft boiled egg for b'fast, with a salad for lunch, with rice for dinner. Cheap and filling and good for you!

[u/Cara_Estranho]

The folks in r/Frugal_Jerk would love this, if only they had access to broadband internet

[u/Nazamroth]

Lentils, fuck yeah!

No one believes me that it is awesome, especially with... uhm... well, not meatloaf but something akin to it.

[u/tusaro]

Lentejas con chorizo!! Lentils with chorizo!! I love it, I could have two bowls of them, only problem is the gas

[u/OPengiun]

wtf... i posted the same thing 23 days ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/ix0k01/lentils_food_for_the_future_2017_investigates_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

[u/muppethero80]

Red lentil pasta is the best