Ressources alimentaires non conventionnelles

Unconventional Food Resources. Concepts of ethnobotany, ethnozoology and ethnoecology are defined and their respective development recounted. The geographic frame is afterwards specified: Tropical Africa. Diversity of wild edible vegetable products is illustrated by some examples: cyanobacteria from Chad, mushroom consumption in the Zambezian region and pteridophagy. Upper plants are approached according to six ensembles, namely starchy fruits and seeds, oilseeds and nuts, fleshy fruits, reserve organs, flowers and vegetable species. After recalling the diversity of insects eating at world scale, four orders are briefly presented: coleoptera, isoptera (termites), lepidoptera (mainly caterpillars or campeophagy) and orthoptera. Finally the nutritional input of unconventional foods is underlined as well as the urgent need of their further studies.