This comprehensive book documents African plants used for functional and medicinal foods. It contains more than 60 detailed monographs of African foods, describing foods with various characteristics such as prebiotic, probiotic, satiety, immune modulation, stress-reduction, sports performance, mental acuity, sleep-supporting, metabolic syndrome, antioxidant, and unsaturated fats. Plant description, botanical names and synonyms, plant part used, habitat and distribution, folk use, nutritional content, and chemistry are all fully detailed. The book highlights indigenous African food processing technologies up to the modern era.
Maurice M. Iwu (M. Pharm., Ph.D. Bradford) was a Professor of Pharmacognosy at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, and a Senior Research Associate at the Division of Experimental Therapeutics of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington D.C. He is the President of Bioresources Development Group (BDG), an African-based independent biosciences research and development organization that cultivates, processes and produces medicines and cosmetics from natural products.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals Plc (formerly Pfizer Nigeria). He is the founder and chairman of Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme (BDCP), Bioresources Institute of Nigeria (BION), Intercedd Health Products (IHP) and the International Centre for Ethnomedicine and Drug Development (InterCEDD). He was the Vice President, Research and Development at Tom's of Maine. Prof. Iwu has received many academic and professional honors, including the World Health Organization (WHO) Visiting Scholar at the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, University of Oxford (1980), Fulbright Senior Scholar Award (Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio and the Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, New York (1983); Senior Research Scholar Award, U.S. National Research Council, Washington D.C. (1993 - 1995) and the Richard Schultz International Prize for Ethnobiology (1999). Commendation and tribute at the United States House of Representative, 106th Congress (2002). He was awarded the Doctor of Letters degree (Honoraris Causa) of Imo State University, Nigeria (2009).
He has presented over 300 scientific papers, published more than 200 research articles and is the author of four books, including the highly cited "Handbook of African Medicinal Plants" (First Edition 1994; Second Edition 2014) published by CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida. He is the Series Editor of the Elsevier Science Series "Advances in Phytomedicine". He is also a member of the Editorial Board of several international scientific journals. He has a number of patents to his credit. He is a member of the Treatment Research Group (TRG) on Ebola virus disease established by the Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Health, Clinical Trial Technical Working Group (CT-TWG) of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) of Nigeria, and the African Regional Standards Organization ARSO) Committee for the Harmonization of Standardization of Traditional Medicines and Medicinal Plants.
