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Cassava is one of the 10 most important food plants, and the most important starchy root or tuber of the tropics. It is also the second most important food crop in sub-Saharan Africa.

Cassava now provides about 30 percent of worldwide production of roots and tubers, and is the staple crop of over 200 million people in Africa alone.

Cassava has white, yellow or reddish flesh beneath a brown skin. Coned or cylindrical in shape, it looks like a sweet potato when small. Cassava is the tuber of a shrub with large palmlike leaves. There are several varieties of cassava.

Cassava is used to make bread, heavy cakes, as a vegetable (boiled, or boiled and fried), baby food, "Chicha" an alcoholic beer, sauces, gravies, pie fillings, pudding, tapioca, and much more...like Vege Chips!

Cassava Nutrition:

Excellent Source: Vitamin C, potassium, iron and magnesium.

Good Source: thiamine, Vitamin B6 and dietary fiber.
Moderate Source: protein.
Also contains: folic acid, niacin, copper, calcium, phosphorus, riboflavin and pantothenic acid
, omega 3 & 6, Vitamin B1 too B6, Vitamin b9, Vitamin E and betaine.

Cassava Health Benefits:

Dietary fiber has been associated with lowering the risk of cardiovascular diseases, colon cancer, and helping control diabetes.

A recent study conducted in the Philippines (one of the countries where cassava is an important crop) looked into the effects of root crops and legumes in lowering cholesterol levels among humans with moderately-raised cholesterol levels.

The study showed that cassava significantly decreased total cholesterol levels, decreased low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (considered as “bad” cholesterol), and may help lower triglyceride levels due to its high total dietary fiber content.

Other studies show that cassava may help support the nervous system and help alleviate stress, anxiety and irritable bowel syndrome.

Cassava History:

Cassava (Manihot esculenta and Manihot dulcis, Euphorbiaceae) originated in Central or South America, possibly Brazil, and was domesticated and widely distributed well before the time of Columbus. Currently subsequent distribution has established cassava as a major crop in eastern and western Africa, in India, and parts of asia like Indonesia.

Cassava was the staple crop of the Amerindians of South America when the Portuguese arrived in 1500 just south of what is known as Bahia, Brazil. The Amerindians living in the area were the Tupinamba, who relied on cassava as a dietary staple, processing it into bread and meal using techniques similar to those still used by Amerindians in the twenty-first century.

When the Portuguese began to import slaves from Africa in about 1550, they used cassava in the form of meal (farinha) to provision their ships and began cultivating cassava at their stations along the coast of West Africa soon afterward. From their stations near the mouth of the Congo River, cassava diffused to all of central Africa. The Portuguese were also responsible for introducing cassava to East Africa, Madagascar, India, Ceylon, Malaya, and Indonesia by the 1700s.

Cassava was probably first introduced into Asia during Spanish occupation of the Philippines and was distributed throughout tropical Asia by the beginning of the nineteenth century. Expansion of cassava cultivation was pushed by colonial administrators who saw cassava as a famine reserve (especially the Dutch in Java, and the British in India), and as an export commodity (Malaya and Java in the 1850s).