Cassava - Manihot esculenta, a low-protein, starchy staple.

In regions where cereal grains cannot be grown, people often rely upon starchy vegetables (roots, tubers, or rhizomes) to supply most of their calories.  Such foods are called starchy staples.  While such crops often have high yields, their primary disadvantage is their very low protein content (<1%).

Cassava, also known has manioc, is a tropical, starchy staple of South American origin.  Potatoes and yams are other starchy staples.  Cassava has another disadvantage; the fleshy roots contain poisonous compounds (cyanogenic glycosides - compounds that liberate cyanide) that must be removed.  Shredding the roots and squeezing out the juice removes much of the toxic compounds.  Heat used to dry the resulting flour removes the remaining compounds.  The resulting flour, called farofa, is very bland, rather like corn meal and flour.  The flour can be mixed with water and the dough cooked on a large griddle to make large cassava flat-breads.  In many areas, cassava breads and farofa are the staple, sometimes only food, consumed for considerable periods of time.  The resulting diet results in chronic protein deficiences.

The purified starch can be used as a thickening agent.  You know gelatinized pellets of cassava starch as tapioca.  There would be little taste if sugar and vanilla flavoring were not added.

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Recently planted Venezuelan cassava field with taller bananas and other fruit trees to the rear.

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This field in Kerala, India, has cassava growing with bananas and betel palms. 

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A cassava plant showing the thick, fleshy roots.  Cuttings of the stems will be used for replanting.

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Washing the peeled roots prior to shredding.  At this stage cassava is rather like a large tough potato. 

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A Caribe woman spreads the squeezed, shredded cassava on a warm griddle to dry into farofa flour.

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Baking a cassava flour flat bread on a large griddle.

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These young Caribe boys should have black hair, not blond. 

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This baby shows symptoms of chronic protein deficiency.

 

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