Today’s Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants will be presented in Spanish, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Halo, esteemed friends, and welcome the conclusion of our two-part program on cultivating sweet potatoes in Costa Rica. Today we’ll examine the benefits of eating these versatile, multi-faceted stars of nature and present various ways to prepare them. The sweet potato, a native of the Americas, was first cultivated in large quantities by the ancient Inca people of Peru. Along with the potato, it was a staple food of the great Inca civilization.

The Incas were the first people in the Americas to farm on terraced fields, due to the fact that their vast empire extended over most of the Andes Mountains and thus there was little flat land for cultivation. Since the sweet potato can be grown from 500 to 2,500 meters above sea level, it was highly suitable to grow given the topography of the Inca Empire.

Sweet potatoes thrive in organically rich soils and can be cultivated without sophisticated care. Besides these qualities, we need to add the richness of their vitamin content and wonderful flavor. The more orange in color the inside of a sweet potato is, the sweeter their flavor and this sweetness makes them attractive as the base of many dishes.

We are vegetarian, my husband and I are vegetarian. We have two kids, six and four years old and we are very interested in organic (foods) because first, we take care of the environment, we are not destroying nature and second, they are clean products without pesticides, insecticides and herbicides.

And why do you like to eat sweet potatoes?

I am Peruvian and also since we are vegetarian the sweet potato is very filling. You can eat a piece and you are full; you don´t need to eat more. It makes us feel filled.

And in what other ways do you eat sweet potatoes at home?

I prepare them mashed with soy milk. We blend them too with soy milk. We eat them with salads.

And we would like to know which qualities you find in the sweet potato and why you like to eat organic sweet potatoes.

They contain a lot of estrogen. Also for memory my mom used to eat them a lot too. So we got used to that and I like it. I always buy them, yes.

And in how many different ways do you eat sweet potatoes? In how many ways do you prepare organic sweet potatoes at home?

With vegetables, or with bread, could be a little boiled, well, that’s it in general.

Good afternoon. Do you like to eat organic sweet potatoes?

I like all that’s organic.

And tell me why you like it, how do you use the sweet potato, how do you like it?

It is because at home my mom and I eat a lot of salads and a lot of vegetables. So we prefer organic because of course you know that you are eating products that, even though they are a little more expensive, they are safer to take care of your stomach and your body, because now we need to take care, consume a lot of things like these.

And in which ways do you eat sweet potatoes? In how many ways do you prepare them?

We make them cooked; we eat them like that. We eat a lot of, for example, sweet potatoes, chayote (mirliton), all those things, all the vegetables, we eat them cooked, nothing else.

Now that we’ve talked about the history, cultivation, benefits and versatility of sweet potatoes, we invite you to join us in learning about ways we cook sweet potatoes here in the Americas.

Let´s start with baked sweet potatoes, great for eating outdoors at a picnic or a casual meeting with friends. We can even bake them over a fire or in the fireplace, using wood we collect in the countryside.

Another excellent way to prepare them is grilled or roasted. So we need to cut them into thin slices and sauté them beforehand in olive oil, salt and some aromatic herbs, which will fill the kitchen with a nice aroma.

The traditional Costa Rican vegetable casserole in which sweet potatoes are used is very hearty fare -- just what we need on a cold, rainy night to relax after the work day.

If you have children or elderly people at home, there’s nothing like a sweet potato purée, prepared with boiled sweet potatoes, vegan margarine and soy milk.

And last, for a little sweetness, there’s the famous sweet potato or yam dessert known from Canada to Patagonia. It is a favorite of all ages; a gourmet dessert and an appetizing treat in Mexico and Argentina.

The sweet potato provides a real lesson in living! Disguised behind its humility and simplicity are hidden the noblest qualities of nature: flavor, nutrition, simple growing requirements and versatility of preparation. Thus sweet potatoes invite us not to see the outside appearance of things, but to look for their most profound qualities and inner beauty. It is our wisdom that must guide us when choosing what we put on our tables. The sweet potato is healthy, nutritious, tasty and an easy to prepare food suitable for everyone from one to 110.

The emotional state is very satisfying. It’s a big satisfaction you feel in the fields, sharing with all the beings that exist, watching, and contemplating them; they give you life. In organic farming, you learn that what you are producing is health. What I sell to you like a consumer, it’s health.

It’s health.

It’s medicine. I’m not selling you a sweet potato because it’s a potato, because of what it is; instead it’s something that contains many more elements than another conventional sweet potato. I’m helping the environment, nature, I’m preserving nature.

My idea is that in the future my children or my grandchildren or even if they are not my grandchildren, the next generations can be grateful to us because we left them something better than we were given. So if my dad gave me this field in this condition, well, what am I going to leave for the ones after me? Well, taking care of it, giving back to them something better than what was given to me, and not something more deteriorated, something that they are not going to be able to use.

So it is a very important thing that you learn, because you like it, because you feel it, because what you’re producing is exciting, and you feel happy. You don´t get sick. At least after you’re involved with this, you quickly realize the difference of seeing people getting sick. They get the flu and go to bed.

They have to stay in bed, every day in hospitals. My daughter, she is 14 years old, and she has never been in a hospital.

She is very healthy.

She is very healthy, yes. She doesn´t eat meat either just by nature.

She never liked meat, never in her life.

So you see how healthy she is compared to other children of her age, that when the rainy season arrives, there is asthma, flu, which... she doesn´t get.

She is healthy.

So one sees how the body starts recovering. So the same way, you see how soil recovers; that the crops are healthier. You also see it in your health.

It’s not that you’re not going to catch the flu, or that you will not get a cold, but when you get it, the body has defenses and faces it more easily.

When it comes to uses, it has a diversity of uses. You can make it into syrup. Sweet potato can be made into syrup, right. And like chips, it can be fried; you can eat it in soup as well, you know, Cooked in soup, along with beans, in purée, mashed for kids. Sweet potato has lots of uses and it has plenty of vitamins.

Hearing the following experience of Felicia Rodríguez, the daughter of an organic farmer, we can only think about the close relationship between our health and the organic way of cultivating the soil. Hippocrates, the famous physician of Ancient Greece, said, “Let your food be your medicine.” And this was proven firsthand by Felicia, who suffered from a skin ailment that was resistant to conventional treatments.

Well, my name is Felicia Rodríguez. I’m 23 years old. I’m the youngest daughter of Eliécer Rodríguez. I developed psoriasis, very, very severe. It was all over the body and well, when that happened, what doctors recommended to me was only pills and creams, ointments. So, well, the problem still persisted for one month, one month and a half, approximately, and then, well, I was in the Calderón Hospital.

I was treated there with a therapy called “PUVA therapy” that is with UV radiation and then after that, well, I went to about seven sessions only and then I decided that I was not going back there. I started to do research, to investigate; well, in fact I did a lot of research about psoriasis because I was a little desperate. So, I started to learn about dairy products and mainly, that milk by itself was number one in skin allergies. Well, I have always been very allergic, I think.

In fact I could never eat non-organic tomatoes, because of the same reason, because it always gave me a bad allergic reaction, like around the mouth. Then I decided to quit milk and all dairy products, and really, that was how the change started in my body. It took like 15 days and it began subsiding. Afterwards, I began having a feeling like compassion for the other animals. So that´s how I started. That was a year ago since I am completely vegetarian.

To close, we once again thank organic farmers from across the world like Juan Luis Salas for providing such beautiful crops like the sweet potato for our sustenance. It is a vegetable that shows us everything in creation has an appropriate place and use. When we respect the Divine harmony of nature, God showers blessing after blessing upon everyone on this beautiful, splendid planet.

Be Veg, Go Green 2 Save the Planet!

Thank you for joining us for today’s program. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, following Noteworthy News. May Heaven’s grace always be upon our world.