Pyrrolizidine alkaloid contamination of food in Africa: A review of current trends and implications.

Pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) contamination of foodstuffs has become a topical issue in recent years on account of its potential hepatotoxicity to consumers. This review therefore highlights human exposure to PAs across Africa, focusing on their occurrence, current trends of food contamination, and their associated health implications. A comprehensive search of peer-scientific literature and relevant databases, PubMed, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Web of Science and Scopus, was conducted from 2001 to 2023 focusing mainly on foodstuffs, including grains, herbs, teas, honey, and livestock products.

Gender-Disaggregated Consumer Testing and Descriptive Sensory Analysis of Local and New Yam Varieties.

Gender-disaggregated sensory evaluation has become an essential element that could enhance breeding activities by increasing the adoption of new varieties. The effect of age, sex and geographical location on descriptor preferences for boiled and pounded yam were studied using descriptive and consumer testing. Attributes with definitions and measurement scales were used to generate lexicons for boiled and pounded yam.

The effect of gender on end-user preferences for yam quality descriptors.

Improving the effectiveness of breeding programs could be achieved by breeding for consumers' preferences. The relationship between gender and consumer preferences for yam was studied using purposeful sampling for key informants, focus group discussions (FGDs), and individual interviews. Data from qualitative interviews were transcribed and quantitative data analyzed using SPSS (version 20).