Another plant to be considered as an important plant for future world food security, the Jerusalem Artichoke, Sunchoke or Sunroots. Like the related sunflowers, their use as food was originated by Native Americans who called them Sunroots. On the plus side of the ledger, they taste good (the French very much favor them as a root vegetable for soups), they are very hard to kill (high resistance to bugs, disease and drought), their carbs are very good for diabetics due to slower absorption, and they store extremely well - in fact you store them in the ground and only dig them up as you need them. They are high in potassium and other minerals. There are downsides. Like many other plants that are considered to have potential to increase world food security in a changing environment (chufa nuts for example), Jerusalem Artichokes can also be considered a virulently pernicious weed. Its super tough, its drought resistant, and it fills the ground with little tubers which become future plants. Essentially, wherever you plant them, they are going to be there forever pretty much, you will never grub up all the little tubers. Commercial growers use glycophosphate (Roundup) to get rid of them. Wherever you plant them, they are going to be there forever, and they might well spread if you arent careful. You pretty much need to sort through the dirt thoroughly every year to get up all the tubers to keep from growing a sunchoke thicket the next year. Also, the tubers have to sit in the ground for awhile in the winter and get chilled so that they can turn the indigestible carbohydrate inulin into digestible fructose, otherwise the inulin will be digested by bacteria in your gut and give you the worlds worst case of the farts. ;) Or, less humorously, the shits. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_artichoke
Posted on: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:53:55 +0000