Dear Tropical Vegetables,
Yes, you, yucca, malanga, ñame, and green plantain, I would be raising a brood of malnourished toddlers if not for you. Not a day goes by that I’m not grateful that you lay down your plans and desires—your little plant life—to feed my family.
I’ll pick you up in the produce section of the Hispanic grocery store, and I’ll pick you up again in the frozen food section. You’re so easy—so satisfying. I just can’t quit, and why would I want to?
There is nothing sexier than a low maintenance meal with high nutritional value. You’re so delicious boiled with just olive and salt I don’t even mind what a pain in the ass you are to peel. We can just make a date of it—you in your fibrous glory, and me with a vegetable peeler. In 30 to 45 minutes, there will be enough love to last us for weeks.
I want to share you with everyone—which is a rather modern approach to love, but I know you could change the world, or at the very least American gut health.
You satisfy the way rice and potatoes do, but there is so much more depth to our relationship that people don’t see. I ramble on about fiber and resistant starches and the way you feed the microbiota in the colon like no one else can, and people nod, but I know they don’t understand my passion for what you bring to this relationship.
While I take a knife to your heart over and over again, you keep coming back to enrich our lives, and all I can offer you is my undying (though borderline abusive) love.
I promise to love you even when you’re old and dry, and I have to turn you into purée to get one more meal out of you. I promise to love you as a lightly fried in avocado oil breakfast food, even when non-Hispanic people look at me like I’m nuts. I promise to love you when you’re just the side dish, and I promise to appreciate you when you’re star dish. Loving you is easy because it benefits me.
Hopelessly devoted,
Me and my gut
In all seriousness, though, tropical vegetables are a super satisfying resistant starch full of fiber. They are easy to make, and they are delicious, so kids usually like them. (Though the texture may be an adjustment for kids living on a steady diet of frozen chicken nuggets. Just remember you need 27 exposures to develop a taste for a food.)
I had heard a lot of talk about fiber in my youth (read: I saw Metamucil ads), but paid no attention until the twins were born too early and had too many gut problems and too many antibiotics.
Being the controlling, anxious person I am, I had to do something about the shit (literally) cards prematurity dealt my kids. So I started listening and reading, and I found an incredible doctor who practices preventative medicine. Thus began my love affair with fiber.
Fiber makes is through the digestive tract and arrives at the colon mostly intact. The colon is where 1,234,285,147,836 microbiota are (hopefully) making a happy home. When the fiber arrives, the microbiota break it down, which produces short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) which are the primary source of nutrition for the cells in your colon. A healthy colon is important for everyone, but even more for people (like my kids) who are have a predisposition for Irritable Bowel Diseases like ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Yay colon health!
The vegetables to which my love letter is addressed are resistant starches that have been shown to reduce diarrhea in children, including my own children. (PRAISE BE.) Resistant starches are also on the list of fibers-that-are-the-best-at-producing SCFAs. Again, yay colon health!
So go on, visit your local Spanish grocery and get yourself a big bag of frozen tropical vegetables, or—if you dare—pick those dry-on-the-outside-slimy-on-the-inside moxiemen up from the produce section and peel them yourself.