Newsroom | January 22, 2014
Oferta Especial
Kuchucho (cuchucho) is the name of an uncultivated root from an ancient plant that grows in the highland of Peru and Bolivia, at heights superior than 3,000 meters.
Highly nutritious, this healthy root can actually prolong the life of people who consume it. And now, apparently, there are some evidences of this.
What is quite certain is that residents of these high Andean regions actually are very long lived and have an excellent physical and mental health, and a very prolonged sexual life, active even in old age.
This root has been used profusely by the inhabitants of the region, due to its nutritional, medicinal and extraordinary aphrodisiac properties. A particularity, that led this plant almost to the edge of the extinction.
The root of kuchucho has remained in anonymity and neglect of the scientists and the researchers from all around the world and, particularly, from those of the countries where it grows, either due to lack of interest in the natural or the native products, discard this highly nutritious resource, able to solve many problems of food and health of theirs populations.
In current years, people are paying more attention to these products as a very important source of health and its benefits are becoming widely known among the inhabitants, not just of the Andean plateau, but from all over Peru and Bolivia.
All this, backed up by some studies of prestigious universities, among which outstands one carried out by a group of expert agronomists of the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (UNALM), which have revealed the existence of a very large number of nutritional and medicinal properties in this wild and safe to eat root, native to Peru, capable of ensuring that people that eat it can live beyond 100 years.
Vidal Villagomez, head of the Program of tubers and roots of the UNALM, explained that the plant grows on the banks of lakes and lagoons of the Sierra, in areas of high altitude. The species has been localized in different areas of the lake Titicaca (Puno), Parinacochas (Ayacucho) and Chinchaycocha (Junin), among others. Also it is found in high Andean wetlands and, primarily, where flow springs.
The agronomist stressed that this root belongs to the group of “reservoir”, because it contains a high reserve, or concentration, of high quality starch and a larger amount of proteins than cereals, the double of calcium than milk and four times more amount of phosphorus that other foods. These nutritional properties invigorate the body to the point of prolonging the existence beyond the age of 100 years, he said.
“Many cases of longevity, superior to the centenary of life, have been found in the people that live in the pampas of Llave, in the district of Pilcuyo, province of Collao, department of Puno. They say that consume kuchucho as part of their daily food,” said Vidal.
He added that even invigorating properties of sexual activity are attributed to this root, higher than those of the famous maca, especially at the stage of senescence.
Vidal pointed out that this root, three to six centimeters long on average, with a consistency similar to a nut, has a sweet flavor and can be eaten fresh or dried, it is easily digestible and, therefore, quickly assimilated by the body.
A creamy white root, that is tender, smooth, swollen, of fleshy consistency and reduced in size, 1 to 2 cm in length and 0.5 cm in diameter. It has a sweet taste, which makes it as well as healthy, tasty. They grow in groups of three to four roots united in the laterally side that resemble small short fingers subjected by a crown which give birth to two small and short leaves, similar to those of the sweet onion. Its flavour is similar to the nut or peanuts, and it is a food of very easy digestion.
The root is consumed raw, dried or tender, and receives the name of cuchucho (kuchucho), both in the quechua language as in the aymara one.
He noted that in the tradition of the Andean people the kuchucho is collected, along with other food and medicinal plants, in April. With the crushed root, they prepare a delicious punch, sweet and pleasant, like the punch of almond or peanut punch-flavored.
Vidal works alongside a team of agronomists, specialists in seeds and irrigation, to achieve that this wild root can be grown in agricultural fields of Peru, in a in a modern technical way and with great performance per hectare.
At the moment, they have this root to germinate and grow successfully in greenhouses and experimental fields of the Unalm. “The challenge now is to get a performance that allows mass cultivation, for the benefit of the Peruvian agriculture,” he concluded.
This root is considered as a nutraceutical, since it is a food with pharmaceutical properties. Its medicinal properties are just as astonishing as the ones of the Andean maca, and although its importance. For the moment, is confined only to the populations of the Highlands of Puno in Peru, but it is true that the benefits of the cuchucho promise to become a source of vitality and longevity for all inhabitants of the world.
The kuchucho or cuchucho, not only is sought for its medicinal qualities, but also because highly attributed aphrodisiac properties. Antúnez de Moyolo argues in his book “La alimentación en el antiguo Perú” (Food in ancient Peru; 1981), that “due to the fact that this natural tonic concentrated was considered as an aphrodisiac, between the XVIth and XVIIth centuries, the plant was on the point of becoming extinct due to the over consumption that was made of it.”
“Among Hispanics and mestizos, the effectiveness of its invigorating properties of sexual activity, especially in old age, was very popular, so it was consumed with great avidity for those purposes”, explains in his book.
For farmers and mestizos in the Altiplano region, such is the exceptional power of reinvigoration of this plant that is widespread among people who consume it an Aymara phrase: “Kuchucho q'acha saytayiriwa anisinataki” (the cuchucho serves to wake up lust and then make love).
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