Popeye Would Like It

Tree spinach, or chayamansa, is nothing less than a superfood for humans as well as livestock

- Megha Prakash

LIKE ANY five-year-old, Disha is a fussy eater. She detests everything that makes the meal wholesome, particularly leafy greens. Of late, her mother Shyamali Chakma has found a way of taking care of Disha’s nutrition. She sneaks a few leaves of tree spinach (Cnidoscolus aconitifolius) into whatever she wants to eat—be it scrambled eggs, thoran (coconut-based curry) or dal. “Three to four leaves of chayamansa, as it is called, are sufficient to meet her daily nutritional needs,” says Chakma, who works with Bodytree, a non-profit in Kerala that is trying to preserve the traditional medical practices of indigenous communities and improve their access to health and education.

The plant is not native to India and Chakma learnt about it from Vaidya Vijayan M R, founder of Bodytree. A few years ago while working with the Kanzhi tribe in Kallar, Vijayan observed that most in the community suffered from nutritional anaemia. “There has been a drastic change in the diet of this hunter-gatherer community since they have been alienated from forests. Now they mostly eat rice and tubers,” he says. The quest of his team to make the community nutrition-secure ended when Vijayan spotted tree spinach at a school in Auroville, Tamil Nadu.