Yacon: A Crunchy, Juicy Health Food with Great Healing Features
By Teodorico R. Magda teodoricomagda@yahoo.com
It is a sweet treat that doesn’t make you fat. And even indulge in it even if you’re a diabetic. Yacon, a naturally nutritious root crop endemic to the Andes is now acclimatized far and wide. It can do much in improving one’s nutrition and health needs. Yacon juice is naturally sweet but low in calories. It is enriched with oligofructose claimed
beneficial for diabetes, obesity, constipation, arthritis, kidney diseases, hypertension, to name a few.
Researchers have associated the taking of oligofructose with improved gut health due to stimulation of the beneficial colon bacteria. As a supplement food, Yacon’s anti-oxidants, anti-microbial, blood-lowering, and liver-protecting properties can improve and maintain one’s health for good. Manufacturers, so far, have processed yacon plant in various forms: dried root slices, powdered root, shredded tea leaves, concentrated juice, extracts and syrup, and lately, yacon in capsules.
Yacon is also called “Earth Apple” and considered as one of the lost crops of Peru’s Inca tribe. It is also one of the ancient crops used ordinarily as food crop until some Japanese researchers have uncovered some very important healing properties of the plant—from roots to flowers.