In order to understand the part played by glutathione on the cohesiveness of the tropical staple items of food, pounded cassava, cocoyam, gari and yam, varying amounts of glutathione were added to the foods after which the resistance to shear stress (cohesiveness) of each food was determined. In each pounded food the added glutathione immediately increased the food's cohesiveness. There was also a linearly increasing relationship between the foods cohesiveness and their endogenous glutathione contents on one hand and between the foods cohesiveness and foods protein contents on the other hand. Glutathione, therefore, increases the cohesiveness of tropical pounded foods by interacting with their proteins which then assume new conformations that increase the cohesiveness of the foods. Copyright © 1983, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved