Have you noticed how even our commonly eaten vegetables such as ewedu, ugwu, generally green leaves for vegetable soups, have also become relatively costlier?
For city dwellers, a family of four would likely need at least N500 worth of one of this vegetables for a meal. If they buy and cook such vegetables 20 days in a month, that is at least N10,000 spent on LEAVES ALONE, not to mention other ingredients that would be needed, so many other more pricey foodstuffs and fruits needed in the household.
As a result, lots of families and individuals except those with 'easy-money' or those who grow most of their food have felt touched by the huge amount in the budget going into feeding.
These foodstuffs may be cheap in the rural areas they are grown massively but one of the main factors shooting up prices is high cost of transportation.
'The government is to be blamed,' many people would quickly and no doubt rightly point out.' That is fact but right now I want to direct energy to one of the things people can do to stay healthy and strong.
Afterwards, we can join in the debates e.g. the President's true certificates and schooling. Maybe the discoveries will alleviate the current food crises - hmmm...
NUTRITIOUS LEAVES
Back to the matter - so many leaves abound all around - some deliberately planted, some just sprouting by themselves.
During last week I went to get some things, a matter came up and the vendor became curious about my interest in plants.
I showed her some of my garden pictures and she spotted some leaves - one of which is sweet potato leaves. She said her mother used to pluck the leaves and cook for their family while she was a kid.
I had always perceived the leaves of sweet potato were edible/nutritious and already planned to research it. So I went to do some reading and lo and behold Sweet potato leaves have so much health benefits -
LEAVES OF SWEET POTATO
It can protect the human body from oxidative damage, inflammation, aging, and hypertension due to the presence of various antioxidant compounds.
Regularly eating leaves of sweet potato i.e. daily can help maintain a healthy blood pressure and reduces the risk of having heart attacks. It can help reduce the growth of cancer cells in the body.
The caveat is to ensure they are naturally grown - no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides.
COOKING THE LEAVES
Sweet potato leaves can be boiled and eaten like that or as a salad. It can be cooked as vegetable soup like 'efo riro' or as 'egusi soup'.
I included it in fried eggs and also in bean paste for akara before frying.
IS IT ECONOMICAL?
But you may be concerned that it would be too much to plant the cuttings of carb sweet potatoes and not get a harvest of the actual sweet potatoes - carbohydrate root tubers as a result of cutting the leaves.
Not to worry - do you know that sweet potatoes can also be propagated from even stalk of the leaves?
Yes o - When I was preparing the sack of soil to plant bitter-leaves, I looked round my mini-garden for what to use in manuring. I used some stalks and leaves of sweet potato to manure not knowing they would germinate - I thought it was only through the carb sweet potato cuttings planted in the soil. See that picture of sack full of leaves of sweet potato? - they sprouted from the stalk of leaves. You can also have huge number of the leaves by dumping wastes - peels of sweet potatoes on the soil - they sprout so easily.
If it is the carb sweet potatoes you want to harvest, don't pluck the leaves -ensure you plant the cuttings of the carb sweet potatoes properly, care for them until they mature and then you dig the soil for harvest.
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