Yummy Yacon Powder | How To Use It

Botanically known as Smallanthus Sonchifolius, Yacon is a sweet root vegetable indigenous to the Andes Mountains. It was once used by the Incas and now widely used throughout Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, as well as many other places around the world for its nutritional properties on top of its low levels of sugar and calories. This has made it a popular medicinal food for diabetics and pre-diabetics around the world. [3]

You see, the thing that makes this sweetener so special is that, while sweet tasting, the complex sugars it contains aren’t very digestible. Well, wait…doesn’t that sound like a bad thing? Not really – and that’s because the main type of sugar in yacon passes through the body safely, possibly leaving our digestive tacts a healthier place than it found it.

In a study performed on obese pre-menopausal women, those who consumed yacon sweetener saw a significant drop in body weight as well as waist circumference measurements and body mass index (BMI). [3]  

Swap it for sugar in your next batch of the beloved classic – chocolate chip cookies. [2] And everyone knows you can’t truly enjoy chocolate chip cookies without having a glass of plant based milk! You shouldn’t resist that urge, because it might just be beneficial to consume your yacon with soy milk. The fructooligosaccharides in yacon may enhance the absorption of the healthy isofavones in soy. [1] Of course you could pair your yacon powder with a different soy product, but we think soy milk and cookies sounds the best…just saying!

If you love yacon powder, you’ll love yacon syrup just as much! More robust in flavor, it can be used like maple or agave. Try both and let us know what you think! 

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