Huangjing (Polygonati rhizoma) is an emerging crop with great potential to fight chronic and hidden hunger

Abstract

According to an annual flagship report produced jointly by the FAO and several other organizations, almost 690 million people, or 8.9 percent of the world’s population, were still suffering from chronic hunger in 2019 (FAO et al., 2020). Moreover, the disastrous COVID-19 pandemic has severely threatened food security, and this may add between 83 and 132 million people to the total global number of undernourished in 2020. On the other hand, more than two billion people suffer from hidden hunger; this is usually associated with growth and developmental problems, mental impairment, poor overall health, and chronic diseases (Siddique et al., 2021). According to the IDF Diabetes Atlas (9th edition, 2019), there are 463 million diabetic patents in the world, with China ranking first in terms of the number of patients, at approximately 116.4 million. The global number is projected to reach an estimated 578 million by 2030 and 700 million by 2045 (www.diabetesatlas.org). Therefore, the goal of food production has been transformed from “eating fully” to “eating healthily”, and hidden hunger has become a new hot topic that has received widespread attention from the international scientific community (Gashu et al., 2021; Jiang et al., 2021; Siddique et al., 2021). Major crop domestication began approximately 12,000 years ago (Siddique et al., 2021). FAO (2019) revealed that just nine (sugar cane, maize, rice, wheat, potatoes, soybeans, oilpalm fruit, sugar beet, and cassava) of 6,000 plant species that have been cultivated for food account for 66% of the total crop production by weight. Three major cereals (maize, wheat, and rice) supply 60% of the global food energy intake. Siddique et al. (2021) reported that a rich variety of nutritious “forgotten crops” in Asia constitute a diverse cropping portfolio, which offers a viable and promising approach to close the current gaps in production and nutrition. Intriguingly, Si and Zhu (2021) found that Huangjing (Polygonati rhizoma) is emerging as a new generation crop that offers high yield and nutrition but does not require fertile land for growth, thus offering great potential to combat chronic and hidden hunger. Huangjing was first recorded in the Chinese pharmaceutical monograph Sheng Nong’s Herbal Classic, and its name derives from “its absorption of the essence from the earth”. Huangjing is a traditional and classic dual-purpose plant for both food and medicine, and it has a good taste and can be consumed in large quantities over a long time. It has been cultivated and has served as a food substitute for more than 2,000 years in China. Given current cultivation technology, standard planting in the forest can produce 1,500 kg dry product per hectare sustainably (Figure 1). Modern research has shown that Huangjing rhizome does not contain starch and is rich in non-starch polysaccharides, oligosaccharides, steroids, triterpenoid saponins, flavonoids, and other nutritional and functional components (Si and Zhu, 2021) . It has the effects of tonifying Qi and nourishing Yin, invigorating the spleen, moistening the lungs, and benefiting the kidneys. In particular, non-starch polysaccharides and fructooligosaccharides contained in Huangjing rhizome have