.,.Herb Of The Week: Ground Nut.,. ~B

[Guest guest]

Ground Nut:

 

Time to expose potatoes for what they really

are... Junk.

Potatoes are full of starch, they make the human

body fat, raise blood sugar levels because they turn to glucose during

digestion and potatoes have very little nutritional value(except in the

peels).

So I thought I would write this weeks Herb O' da

Week on our native delicious tubers.

 

Apios

Americana or Ground Nuts are a

wonderful and delicious survival food in the Pea / Legume

Family. The tubers form on the roots in a string like manner

and are used by the plant for food storage. The Ground Nut is a

perennial vine blooming fragrant maroon flowers. Tubers are usually dug

up in the winter months. The sweet, starchy tubers are eaten raw,

boiled, fried, roasted or otherwise prepared like potatoes.

 

Medicinal Qualities: Said to be a Cancer preventative and Cancer fighting.

Food Facts: Groundnut

tubers are high in starch and protein; in fact, on a

dry weight basis, groundnut tubers have three times the protein

as potatoes

Landscaping: Beautiful

tropical looking flowers that begin blooming in July or August.

Soil enrichment: It's a nitrogen-fixing

plant!!!!! Turn your garden soil and get your

breakfast at the same time.

:-)

History: This plant was used as a food source by

Native Americans who taught the early colonists how to find them.

Seed Pods: Long

seed pods develop from the flowers that are also edible and look like

green beans.

Quantity: Research by

Blackmon and Reynolds (1986) in Louisiana resulted in a Ground Nut that

formed 3.7

kg (ca. 7 lbs) of tubers per plant in a single growing season.

 

 

 

Potato Crimes: Perhaps the most creative

use of a potato in history was that of master criminal, John Dillinger,

who carved a pistol out of a potato, stained it with iodine (iodine

turns the starch black) and used it to escape from jail.

 

 

~B

 

The Herb of the Week is sponsored by Organic Solutions /

Smoky Montain Trading Post. All rights

are to be re-served again and again for we recycle around here.