Apios americana
| American groundnut | |
|---|---|
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Genus: | Apios |
| Species: | A. americana |
| Binomial name | |
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Apios americana Medikus |
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| Synonyms | |
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A. tuberosa Moench |
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A. tuberosa Moench
Apios americana, sometimes called the potato bean, hopniss, Indian potato, hodoimo, America-hodoimo, American groundnut,or groundnut (but not to be confused with other plants sometimes known by the name groundnut) is a perennial vine that bears edible beans and large edible tubers. Its vine can grow to 1–6 m long, with pinnate leaves 8–15 cm long with 5–7 leaflets. The flowers are usually pink, purple, or red-brown, and are produced in dense racemes 7.5–13 cm in length. The fruit is a legume (pod) 5–13 cm long. Botanically speaking, the tubers are rhizomatous stems, not roots. Its natural range is from Southern Canada (including Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick) down through Florida and West as far as the border of Colorado.
The tubers are highly palatable with culinary characteristics of a potato, although the flavor can be somewhat nuttier than a potato and the texture can be finer. Studies in rats suggest that raw tubers should not be consumed because they contain harmful protease inhibitors that are denatured by cooking. Tubers contain roughly three times the protein content of a potato (16.5% by dry weight), and the amino acid balance is good with the exception of cysteine and methionine.Apios americana tubers were found to have a protein concentration of 15–30 mg/g. This was similar to that of other species in the Apios genus, Apios carnea and Apios fortunei. However, A. americana had larger levels of genistein than the other two species. The fatty acid content of tubers is approximately 4.2% to 4.6% with linoleic fatty acids predominating. Thirty-six percent of the fresh weight of a tuber is carbohydrate (primarily starch). The tubers are also an excellent source of calcium and iron. Calcium content is 10-fold greater than a potato and iron is 2-fold greater than a potato, although vitamin C was considerably less than a potato. The tuber and the flower are also full of mono and oligosaccharide. The tuber has more monosaccharides and oligosaccharides than the soybean, potato, and sweet potato. In addition, the tubers appear to have numerous health promoting factors. Hypertensive rats that were fed powdered tubers as 5% of their total diet experienced a 10% decrease in blood pressure and also a reduction in cholesterol and triglycerides. It has been shown that the tubers contain genistein and other isoflavones that have various health benefits, including an anticarcinogenic function against colon, prostate, and breast cancer. Genistein-7-O-gentiobioside is a novel isoflavone that is found in the American groundnut. Extract from the American groundnut was shown to not have anti-oxidative activity itself, but to drive the anti-oxidative pathway in cells. Human breast carcinoma MCF-7 cells were pretreated with the extract of A. americana for 24 hours. Subsequent analysis showed an increase in expression of heme oxygenase-1, a protein induced during oxidative stress. The American groundnut, like soybean, is a great source of isoflavone. Furthermore, a study on A. americana and it’s flower shows that the flower of the particular plant is not toxic to mice. In fact, the flower was shown to lower plasma glucose levels in diabetic mice. The flower was shown to have an inhibitory activity on maltose and an anti-hyperglycemic effect in mice suggesting that not only is it a viable and novel food source for the general population, but also in the prevention of diabetes.
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Wikipedia