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Institutional barriers to accessing formal support, such as the inability to meet religious and cultural needs, must be addressed if Bangladeshi carers are to be provided with services which are acceptable to them. Primary care providers, including community nurses and health visitors, need to work in partnership with the Bangladeshi community if services are to be acceptable and appropriate for meeting the needs of these hidden carers.

Previous academic research has concentrated on the nutritional and pharmacological properties of culturally constructed food-medicines (Etkin and Ross, 1982; Owen and Johns, 2002, Pieroni and Quave, 2006). However, our findings indicate a contextualisation of the food-plant spectrum based on both local beliefs and wider structural factors, and thus not necessarily characteristics intrinsic to the products׳ pharmacological or nutritional properties. The implications of this research are of both academic relevance and practical importance to informing health services.