Mexican Sweet Potato - Wild Yam

Video: Mexican Sweet Potato - Wild Yam

Video: Mexican Sweet Potato - Wild Yam
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Mexican Sweet Potato - Wild Yam
Mexican Sweet Potato - Wild Yam
Anonim

Wild yam is a perennial vine, also known as Mexican sweet potato or Dioscorea villosa. The plant originates from North America and is found in the tropics of Mexico and Asia. There is a variety of it called Chinese sweet potato, originating from China.

The wild sweet potato is a large creeping plant with thick busty roots and creeping stems, reaching 6 meters in height. Its rhizome is 5-10 cm in diameter, reddish-brown in color.

The roots initially taste like starch, after which they acquire a bitter and sharp taste. The stems are many in number and do not branch. The leaves are oval, 6-12 cm long. The roots and rhizomes of both types of sweet potatoes are used to make herbal medicines.

As early as the 18th and 19th centuries, herbalists used wild sweet potatoes to treat menstrual cramps and birth problems, as well as abdominal pain and coughs. In the 1950s, scientists discovered that the roots of wild sweet potatoes, Mexican and Chinese, contained diosgenin.

Sweet potato
Sweet potato

It is a phytoestrogen (plant-based estrogen), which, however, can be chemically converted to the hormone progesterone. And it was diosgenin that was used to make the first birth control pills in the 1960s. And since there are at least 600 varieties of this potato, it is important to note that not every species contains this phytoestrogen.

Herbalists, of course, continue to use the valuable properties of wild yam in menstrual cramps, nausea, inflammation, osteoporosis, asthma, etc., although some studies show that the effect is not always present.

Which, of course, is possible because our bodies cannot process diosgenin on their own and convert it to progesterone, but laboratory intervention is needed.

Mexican sweet potato is extremely useful and can be an addition to some main dishes, even desserts. Don't miss the opportunity to try something different.

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