Plant. Share. Eat. Tackling Malnutrition in Malawi

It's all very well growing sweet potatoes, but you also need to learn how to cook them to preserve all the valuable nutrients.   Recently RIPPLE Africa have been working with local families to discuss and develop a simple nutrition programme using ingredients available in the local markets. A key element of this is the new orange fleshed sweet potato and we have run cookery lessons at the local health clinic attended by over 30 women to teach new ways of cooking the sweet potatoes to improve their nutritional value.

Normally sweet potatoes are peeled and boiled, but to preserve the nutrients, we are encouraging people to cook them with the skin left on.  And by simply grinding peanuts into a flour-like consistency and adding this to the sweet potato along with other local vegetables, people will also get valuable protein and a more balanced meal than their staple food, nsima. Nsima is a porridge, made from either maize flour or cassava flour which is eaten in large quantities accompanied by a very small amount of vegetables and possibly some protein such as fish. Although it provides a filling meal. the nutritional value of nsima is very low compared with the orange fleshed sweet potatoes that people are now growing. Martha is delighted that she can now give her family more nutritious meals.

Your funding has also helped RIPPLE Africa to buy more sweet potato vines to distibute to farmers – there are so many that we couldn’t fit them all into our vehicle and we had to make several trips to collect them.  Yet more yummy sweet potatoes will soon be available for rural Malawians to cook and eat - thanks to all of you who are supporting this amazing project!