| potential functional foods in the traditional maori diet. | the maori people were early new zealand settlers of polynesian descent. the incidence of non-infectious diseases appears to have been low in these people, perhaps in part due to the presence of protective chemical constituents within their food plant supply. three of the tropical crops they introduced are still eaten here today: the sweet potato or kumara (ipomoea batatas), the taro (colocasia esculenta) and the cabbage tree or ti (cordyline terminalis). sporamins a and b, the major storage prot ... | 2003 | 12628508 |