Nutritional Value Of Dioscorea Bulbifera (Aerial Yam)
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Nutritional Value Of Dioscorea Bulbifera (Aerial Yam)
ABSTRACT
Dioscorea bulbifera, a yam species found in tropical and subtropical climates around the world, is a significant stable food crop. Dioscorea bulbifera has long been used to reduce the glycaemic index, resulting in more sustained energy and improved protection against obesity and diabetes. It also possesses anti-cancer potential.
The current study was conducted to explore the nutritional profile and phytochemical screening of Discorea bulbifera. Which contains 7.47% protein, 14.74% moisture, 2.56% ash, 0.35% fibre, and 73.62% carbohydrate.
It also shows the presence of minerals such as Ca, Mg, K, P, and Na, as well as phytochemical analysis such as saponin, tannin, flavouring, and alkaloids.
Chapter one
1.0 Introduction
Dioscorea bulbifera is a yam species that was extensively cultivated and used by previous generations as a household name, means of survival, medicine, and food, among other things. It is cooked in a variety of ways, including roasting, boiling, and eating with oil and condiments, depending on the individual.
It has been agreed that people of the past lived longer and were healthier as a result of their lack of exposure, low health care system, and poor sanitation and hygiene than the present century. Despite having all of these facilities at our fingertips, many people succumb to various types of illness, and many wonder why?
An evaluation of the type of food that people of the past relied on was discovered to be the secret in order to verify and affirm. (Oke, 1990). The most common tubers fed on by the elderly were selected and worked on.
This was done to determine the nutritional value, significance, and uses of aerial yam. Surprisingly, most people are unaware that such yam exists, and it is rarely marketed on the market. Because of the worth and relevance of this yam species, just a few individuals in this area of eastern land continue to farm it.
This study will assist you in determining the nutritive content of aerial yam, which is one of the foods eaten by the elderly and is their secret to healthy living, as well as to inspire many people to revisit most of the crops cultivated and harvested by the elderly and shed more light on them.
1.1 Literature Review
Dioscorea bulbitera is one of the many varieties of yam. Yam is the common name for certain species in the family Dioscorea; they are perennial herbacocous vines grown for the consumption of their starchy tubers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, among other places. Yam is a versatile food that can be grilled (with reduced heat).
Roasted, fried, boiled, etc. yam are stable crops of the Igbo people in Nigeria, called as “ji” in their language, and they remember it by holding a yam festival as a sign of fresh crop and abundance of fresh food throughout Nigeria.
The new yam festival is either “iri-ji” or “iwa-ji,” depending on the dialect. Yams are a key agricultural crop that is widely grown in West Africa, where over 95% of the world’s yam crop is collected.
They are essential for survival and provide a means of livelihood for others. There are around 600 yam types, with 95% cultivated in Africa (library congress 2011).
Examples of yam types include white yam (Dioscorea volundata), Chinese yam (D. oposita), yellow (D. cayenesis), water yam (D. alatal), lesser yam (D. esculenta), bitter yam (D. dumetorum), cush yam (D. trifida), and air potato (D. bulbifera), among others.
Bulbitera is a yam species also known as varahi in Sanskrit, kaachi in Malayalam, Dukkar kand in Maraitu, Aldo in some parts of Igbo land in Nigeria, or Aerial yam in English or Air potato. The Air potato plant is native to Africa and Asia; it is an invasive species in many tropical areas, including Florida (Duke et al 1993).
The air potato was introduced to Americans from Africa in 1905. It was introduced in Florida because of its ability to displace native species and disrupt natural processes such as fire and water flow.
The air potato has been listed as one of the Florida’s most invasive plant species since 1993 and has been placed on the Florida Noxious weed list by the Florida Department of Agriculture and consumers since 1999.
1.2 Scientific Classification of D. bulbifera (Taxonomy)
Kingdom – Plantea
(unranked) – Angiosperm
(unranked): monocots
Order: Dioscoreales.
Family – Dioscoreacece.
Germs: Dioscorea.
Species – D. bulbifera
Dioscorea bulbifera is also known as air potato or aerial yam.
1.3 D. BULIFERA SPECIES DESCRIPTION
Aerial yam is a perennial vine with large leaves and two types of storage organs. The plant produces bubils in the leaf axils of its twining stems and tubers beneath the ground. These strictly twining long-stemmed herbaceous plants can grow from underground tubers, though tubers are often inconspicuous or nonexistent.
The stems are spherical or slightly slanted in cross section, and they twine anticlockwise. Conspicuous aerial tubers known as bulbils are pale spherical to globose in shape and up to 13cm broad, forming in leaf axils. It is these bulbils that provide D. bulbifera is the common name for air potato.
The leaves are elegant, alternating, broad, heart-shaped, up to 20cm long, and linked by a long petiole. They are divided longitudinally into lobes by proximal arching vieas that radiate out from a single point of origin where the petiole is linked to the leaf.
Flowers are scarce in D. Bulbifera are little pale green fregnants that grow from leaf axils. The fruit is a capsule with somewhat winged seeds (Langland and Buks, 1998; Langland 2001).
Before eating, the tubers should be socked or boiled to reduce the bitter taste (Kay, 1987). Most people prefer the flavour of other yams, hence it is not often grown commercially. They are prepared the same way as ordinary yams.
The air potato was the most popular yam species in the 1960s; it can grow up to 150 feet tall, grows at a rate of around 8 inches each day, and eventually reaches over 60 feet in length.
It frequently climbs trees and takes over native vegetation. New plants emerge from bulbils, which are underground tubers. The major means of propagation and reproduction are bubils;
the tiny bubils make air potato management difficult because of their capacity to sprout at a very early stage. The vine produces small white blossoms, which are rarely seen as it grows. The fruits are capsules (National Tropical Botanical Garden 2007).
1.4 INVASION INFO
The plant was first introduced to the world via the share trade and then transferred to Florida in 1905 as a USDA sample for horticultural evaluation (Coursey 1967; Sehults 1993). They receive and use the sample in which they saw the possible risk that the hostile potential invader posed to the state.
Vigorous sexual reproduction via bubils has aided the continuous spread of invasive vine throughout the majority of the state (Mantinez 1993). Bubils can survive on the ground for a year or more and still sprout and ruin contact D.
Bubifera had spread to undeveloped terrain near Tapa by 1996, and the plant had been reported from natural settings in Florida (big land and Burk 1998).
As of 2007, the Florida exotic pest plant council’s early detection and mapping system reports that D. Bulbilfera is presently present in at least 46 (of 67) Florida countries.
1.5 POSSIBLE ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF INVASION
bulbifera is classified as an invading exotic plant in Florida, signifying that the species is currently affecting the native plant ecosystem by displacing native species and altering community structure or ecological services.
Asexual multiplication by bulbils that drop from parent vines to the ground in profusion makes eradication of the plant extremely difficult once it has infested an area. If the plant is cut to the ground, the tubers can survive for a long time and produce new small shoots. D.
tubers and bulbils are widely distributed throughout the world. Bulbifera is consumed as food, and the plant has long been used as a folk medicine, acting as an analgesic, aphrodisiac, diuretic, and rejuvenative tonic. The plant produces the steroid diosgenin, an active component of birth control pills, as well as the antifungal chemical dihydrorodio scor.
1.6 Salinity
Air potato is not salt-tolerant and is a successful invader of marine and estuarine shorelines (Morisawa, 1999).
1.7 TOXICITY.
Aerial yams include antinutritional properties. In Asia, detoxication and roasting of the grated tuber are employed to improve cultivars of this yam. The bitter ingredients in yams, often known locally as air potato, include disobulbin and potentially saponins.
These substances are poisonous, producing paralysis (Oke 1990). Also, the wild form of bitter is known as bitter yam. Yams are typically detoxified in a vessel of salt and water, whether cold, hot, fresh, or in a stream.
The yam’s bitter ingredient is made up of water-soluble alkaloids that cause a variety of unpleasant effects when consumed. Severe cases of alkaloid poisoning may be lethal.
Uncultivated variants, such as those discovered growing wild in Florida, can be toxic. These species contain diosgenin, a steroid that is used to make a variety of synthetic steroidal hormones, including those used in hormonal contraception (National Tropical Botanical Garden 2007. Pest plant air potato 2010 claimed that even the wild form is edible after drying and boiling, causing misunderstanding over true toxicity.
1.8 Embroyology
In the places where they are produced, D. Bulbifera seeds are wind-dispersed (Hammer, 1998), therefore even if flowering occurs more often, sexual reproduction by seed is likely to be secondary. Seed of D. Bulbefera and other members of the genus are thought to go through an obligate dormancy period lasting many months before germinating.
This method is most likely an evolutionary adaptation to assure the availability of viable seeds in the seed bank when breaks in forest canopy cover occur. A legitimate laboratory regime for viable, non-dormant D.
Germination of bulbifera seeds takes around twenty-one days at 300 degrees Celsius (Elis et al 1985). They are also dispersed by flood water and appear to be minimally affected by feeding from raccoons, feral pigs, and other animals (Coursey 1967 Morisawe 1999).
1.9 Reproduction
Reproduction in D. bulbifera reproduces both sexually and asexually. Discorea species are doccious, with male and female blooms on distinct plants. The head of reproduction in D. Bulbifera is asexual and relies on dedicated growth from both underground and aboveground bulbils.
Tubers and burbils typically emerge in the spring, and the new shorts frequently climb the damaged stems from the previous year to reach the tree canopy.
During the summer (June-July), a huge number of fresh bubils are formed, which fall to the ground by late August. By the time seasonal stem die back occurs around October, a single vine could have out 200 bubils (www.killerparts.com 2004).
1.1.0 Potentially Misidentified Species
D. alata, or water yam. Bulbifera are seemingly identical in appearance, yet distinguishing between the two is straightforward. D. alata and alternating in D. bulbifera.
The subterranean tubers of D. Alata are likewise large, with some weighing more over 45 kg, whereas the D. Bulbifera are tiny and may be absent entirely. (Largelan and Burks, 1998).
1.1.1 STORAGE.
Roots and tubers, such as yam, are live creatures that continue to breathe while stored. The respiration mechanism causes the oxidation of starch (a glucose polymer) contained in the tuber cell, converting it into water, CO2, and heat energy.
During the starch transformation process, the dry malter in properly preserved tubes is considered the least perishable. The following are the ways for successful storage of yam (Linus 2003).
Avoid bad and damaged yams; only use sound and healthy yams.
Proper curing, if possible in conjunction with fungicide treatment
Adequate ventilation to eliminate heat created by tuber respiration.
Regular observation during storage and removal of volting tuber and any sprouts that emerge.
Protecting against direct sunshine and remaining (temperature 14-150 degrees Celsius).
SAFETY PROFILE.
Yams of African species must be cooked before consumption since numerous nutritional toxin substances, such as dioscorina, might cause disease if eaten raw. Note that yams contain a poisonous toxin called diosegenin, which can be converted into beneficial chemicals through chemical reactions.
They include cortisone, which is used to treat joint pain in arthritis, allergic reactions like bee stings and rashes, and general body inflation, as well as many hormones such as oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
The hormones mentioned belong to a category known as steroids. You may have heard of steroids as substances used incorrectly to boost a person’s athletic ability.
Excessive skin contact with yam juices might make your skin itch. If this happens, a fast cold bath or the application of palm oil to the affected area of the body will relieve the itching.
1.1.3 USES
D. tubers and bubils are widely distributed around the world. Bulbifera is eaten as food, and the plant is grown as an agricultural crop. It has also long been used as a folk medicine, notably as an analgesic, aphrodisiac, diuretic, and rejuvenating tonic.
Some of the medical applications of D. bulbifera are used in traditional Chinese medicine. bulbifera is used to cure soar throat, stomach cancer, and reticulum carcinoma (GAE et al 2007).
It has traditionally been used to reduce the glycaemic index, thereby giving a more prolonged type of energy and greater protection against obesity and diabetes. It also has anti-cancer benefits (Jiang 1978).
Dioseorea bulbifera is used in Bangladesh for the treatment of leprosy and tumours (Murray et al 1984), and by the native people of the Western highlands of came room for the treatment of pig cysticercosis through the tubers after collection during the farming period, are completely destroyed and burnt because of high bitterness.
The roots of bulbifera, despite being considered dangerous due to their cytotoxic effect, have been utilised in Chinese medicine as a cure for sore throat and struma.
In Zimbabwe, this plant is used as an infusion to use on wounds and stores for both humans and animals, while in Cameroon and Madegascar, the rounded bulbs are applied on abscesses, boils, and wound infections (Corgu 2002).
In India, its bulbs are used to cure piles, diarrhoea, syphilis, and ulcers, as well as discomfort and inflammation (Gupta and Sigh, 1989).
Air potato has been used as a flock medicine or home cure for conjunctivitis, diarrhoea, and dysentery, among other ailments (Duke et al. 1993). The plant yields dihydrodrodio, an anti-fungal chemical that contains the steroid diosgenin, which is an active component of birth control tablets.
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