Media Release 14 October 2008
Puwha and pikopiko: are edible New Zealand plants good for you?
A collection of edible New Zealand plants, such as puwha, native spinach, Maori potato, dandelion, pikopiko and watercress, will be going under the microscope this term at CPIT’s School of Applied Science and Allied Health to find out if they have any nutritional value.
Applied Sciences tutor Michael Edmonds has been granted a CPIT Foundation Award for the project, which grew out of a request from a fellow tutor at CPIT’s Meat Training School who wanted to put puwha in his sausages and was interested to know if it would add any nutritional value.
The project will allow Applied Sciences students to analyse the plants for antioxidants, vitamins and other nutrients.
“Most processed foods have to list the nutritional content on their labels, and nutritional data is readily available for most fresh foods,” Michael Edmonds says. “But there has been very little published research on the nutritional contents of edible New Zealand plants and no research at all to find out if they contain any anti-oxidants.”
The mid-year CPIT Foundation Awards grant round also made an award to Dorothee Pauli, a tutor at the School of Art and Design, for the conservation of 24 original works of intaglio, relief and mixed media printmaking, and to Julie Humby, to attend an intensive course in glass casting and ceramics at Pilchuk Glass School, near Seattle in the United States.
A further grant was made to the School of Applied Sciences to provide additional technology for distance learning of basic science courses (to help people from outside Christchurch qualify for nursing and midwifery graduate courses) and for in-class teaching of students using web-based animations and other resources requiring advanced technology. Grants in the Foundation’s mid-year grants round totalled $31,000.
Photo caption:
CPIT Applied Sciences tutor Michael Edmonds and final-year B.Appl.Sc. student Heather Rayner with vials of extracts of dandelion (yellow), puwha (clear) and ureniki, known as Maori potato (pink). Heather Rayner is currently testing for extracts of vitamin C.