It’s Sunday September 19th, 2021, and this evening we dig deep to look at Ground provisions and your health!
As a widely used staple in Caribbean cooking, how do they impact our health? Which among them is preferred when you are managing diabetes or want to lose weight? Does the method of cooking change the effect they have on the body? And last but not least, are they a friend or foe to the Gut Microbiome?
The term Ground Provisions is uniquely Caribbean…and many of us have had to explain the expression to foreigners , stating that it’s our reference to Root Crops or Root vegetables such as cassava, yam, dasheen , sweet potatoes, eddoes , tannia and cush cush! BUT for Caribbean cooks, will also include other starchy vegetables – namely green fig, breadfruit and plantain.
There is a theory that the term “Ground Provisions” originated during the period of slavery when plantation owners , instead of absorbing the cost of feeding the slaves, would designate a plot of land called a “provision ground” for slaves to grow their own food…and these Provision grounds were lands often of poor quality and far from the villages…Now in 2021 , what was once a poor man’s food is now appearing on the menus of fine dining restaurants and as gluten-free starch options in cafes and supermarket shelves both locally and abroad. So persons with gluten sensitivity or those who have been diagnosed with Coeliac Disease and cannot consume wheat, barley or rye have found ground provisions to be reasonable starch options in their meal plans.
But apart from being gluten free how do ground provisions stack up against other starches such as wheat-based flour and rice? For that we must revisit a concept we discussed in last week’s episode with Professor Dan Ramdath. The concept of THE GLYCAEMIC INDEX!
The glycaemic index is a rating that is given to a starchy food based on its ability to raise blood sugar as compared to 50 grams of pure glucose or 50 grams of white bread, and the higher the number the greater the rise in blood sugar after eating that food. Starches with a glycaemic index of 70 or greater are considered high. Starches with a Glycaemic index of 55 and under are low and of course, between 55 and 70 are considered intermediate.
If you wanted to lose weight or achieve better diabetes control, you would reduce or swap out any high glycaemic starches for intermediate or low ones! In the ranking of ground provisions, Dasheen a Cassava and yam have the highest Glycaemic indices whether the method of preparation was boiling alone or crushed after boiling. Green fig, breadfruit , eddoes and tannia are intermediate GI and would be reasonable options for swapping out dasheen or cassava or white flour-based bread. Interestingly ripe plantain has a high GI when Fried but an intermediate one when boiled and sweet potato has a lower glycaemic index when it is boiled instead of roasted.
Now that you have a better idea about the capability of Ground provisions to raise blood sugar, what about their impact on the Gut Microbiome? To be a friend and not a foe, ground provisions would need to supply soluble fibre – and indeed they are all good sources of fibre- with breadfruit ranking the highest among them- a cup of breadfruit has a whopping 10 grams of fibre, yam has 6 ,green fig , dasheen ,sweet potatoes and eddoes have 4 , cassava has 3 and plantain about 2.5.
When I look at the combined qualities of glycaemic index and fibre content, I am tempted to say Breadfruit is my favourite… its widely and easily grown in our climate and starts producing fruit within 2-3 years . One breadfruit tree can yield 400-600 pounds of breadfruit and the harvesting period is long – from February to September. We just must remember that boiling is the healthiest method of using it.
I hope that you feel more enlightened and empowered to make the best choices when it comes to ground provisions in your diet, and I look forward to being with you again as we continue our journey to becoming HEROES OF OUR OWN HEALTH…
