YACÓN
Botanical name:
Smallanthus sonchifolius (Poepp. & Endl.) H. Rob.
Alternative names:
Yacón, yacon, Peruvian ground apple, aricoma, jícama (sometimes, badly)
Main indications:
Andean food tuber
FOS sweet with little available sugar
folk metabolic / sweet-food comfort
stool softness from the fiber
Short characteristics:
Bite it raw and it is crisp and sweet, then the sweetness does not land like cane sugar. That is FOS. Yacón is an Andean root, not an Amazonian herb. Folk talk gives it a metabolic reputation. One human syrup trial exists; it is not a diabetes drug.
Genta 2009: 120 days, obese pre-menopausal women. Weight, waist, insulin, HOMA moved. Fasting glucose did not. Caetano 2016 is an FOS review — do not upgrade their “prevent and treat” sentence into a claim. This site sells nothing.
The usual way of use:
Eat the tuber fresh, or a short-cooked slice. Syrup is concentrated FOS — start low.
This site sells nothing.
WARNING: 0.29 g FOS/kg/day in Genta’s trial caused gas and dropouts; 0.14 g/kg was tolerated. FODMAP-sensitive guts will notice. Do not swap it for prescribed diabetes drugs.
Composition
FOS; free fructose, glucose, and sucrose that rise in storage; some phenolics in leaves (leaves are not the food root).
Traditional use
Andean food; later folk metabolic tea. Not a jungle herb.
Precautions
Gas, cramps, FODMAP load. Not a type-2-diabetes, nephrosis, or kidney-infection treatment.
Opened studies
Genta et al. (2009). Yacon syrup in obese pre-menopausal women: 120-day RCT. Weight/waist/insulin/HOMA down; fasting glucose unchanged. PMID 19254816.
Caetano et al. (2016). Yacon / FOS review. Do not upgrade review language into a disease claim. PMID 27455312 · PMC4963912.