We are in the midst of the maize season, which should provide us with sumptuous and nutritious pots of mushroom soup every day, if only we weren’t careless and inwardly indolent, wasting the abundance around us.
I have long forgiven the white and red cap chiefs of the Anchor Borrowers project, who, through their deeds and misdeeds, opposed the dreams of hundreds of us in the Golden Farmers Co-operative to become outstanding maize farmers. In this group, I had wished to show how waste products from the maize business could profit our purses, cooking pots, bodily health, and those of others outside our fold. Unfortunately, we were shackled in a dying bank, Heritage, which crippled our dreams.
Dreams never die, however. They are intuitive whispers or ideas from higher grounds that develop into forms that the frontal brain can conceptualise or hammer into earthly realities. These forms float when they miss their anchorages in some places or persons; they float elsewhere where the reception may be better.
Since I learned about Waste Not, Want Not, I had wondered what could be done with the stalk, leaves, corn covers, and corn silk after the maize harvest, boiling, or roasting of corn for eating or conversion to corn porridge or corn pap for drinking. I believe it was in the 1980s that we learned that the golden threads (corn silk) removed from the corn after stripping off the husk covers have several urogenital medicinal substances. When cleaned up, dried, and boiled, and taken as tea, they provide diuretic effects, helping the kidneys move out more water from the blood and body. They have been found to kill some germs in the urinary tract system and help mild prostate gland issues. When corn silk is used wet as tea or in other edible forms, it gives laxative effects.
In respect of the plant, this is a first lesson in Waste Not, Want Not, a message that nothing from the hands of mother nature is waste material. Also, in the 1980s, when there was talk about aluminum being a cause of some brain problems, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, and that it could facilitate cancer in any weak or susceptible parts of the body, I got wind of the movement of Chinese people from Aluminum foil food wrappers to the use of special material made from corn covers. The discovery was exciting to me; I needed no persuasion that the covers could have medicinal value as well. Did we not enjoy the maize boiled or roasted in their covers more than the naked one? When we roast maize with the covers on, burning one cover after another and removing the corn from the coal fire pot or oven before the heat consumes the last layer of covers, we enjoy a lot of corn oil with the corn unlike the naked roasting, which does not yield oil. Naked roasting may also cause burns, which may be carcinogenic when eaten.
So far in Nigeria, we do not know how to convert corn covers to natural food wrappers, save money on aluminum foil wrappers imports, create jobs, and eat healthier foods. We are probably inwardly immobile because mother nature blessed us in diverse ways. We have lots of Thomatoccus Danieli (moi moi or agidi leaf or ewe Iran), water extracts of which have been noted to help in the treatment and possible reversal of alcohol damage in the liver, some cases of liver failure and jaundice.
We have lots of plantain leaves in which Akwa Ibom women wrap fufu. What of plantain leaves in which some women even boil rice, beans, or yam? Evidence of our inward and intellectual indolence or, better still, spiritual indolence, because we are human spirits and spirit energy or power drives everything we do, is that we cannot encapsulate these leaves into digestible forms for everyday use as nutritional food supplements.
From the corn covers, I move on to the maize stalk. When I hear my maize farmer friends complain that fertiliser had become more expensive, I ask them what they did with the stalks of the previous harvest. Alfa Aliu, a former Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) employee, who is now a chicken and maize farmer in Minna, and Ver Abraham, a thriving farmer in Gboko, can bear witness to this.
I suggested their farms acquire hammer mills to powderise the stalks, leaves, and empty cobs and mix the powder with the top soil before maize cultivation in a new season. What about experimenting with adding this powder to animal feed to reduce feed cost, create jobs, produce healthier animals that would improve human health? That is what I do in my small home flower bed garden with tremendous results.
It was in this process of carrying out this experiment that I was led to a new idea of a new use for empty corn cobs. I discovered that empty corn cobs may help in the production of mushrooms. Recently, I got bricklayers to mould 24 flower pots around the house. We filled them one quarter up with vegetable stems obtained from vegetable sellers in the markets. We added orange peel and sawdust. We aimed to develop compost ground with corn cobs.
That was when Udeme James, a gardening lover, went online to find out what the outcomes could be. I had no doubts. I had done it before with flower gardening, chicken, and pig feed. From four pigs, three of them female, I had farmed about 300 pigs and piglets in one year at the Oke-Aro pig village, near Iju, Ogun State. Which new idea did Udeme James come upon? On TikTok, she found the video of a Chinese woman who was growing mushrooms at home for her family’s consumption.
I need to warn that this venture is not for persons who cannot identify poisonous mushrooms from nutritional mushrooms. Women, and perhaps men, who grew up in Nigerian villages easily tell the difference, although some mishaps do occur with fatalities. I, therefore, suggest that novices keep away or discipline themselves to learn the art. When I was a young newspaper sub-editor in the 1970s, I sub-edited many vlcopies of several persons who ended up in hospital or died after poisonous mushrooms meals. The poisonous mushroom was so buried in my sub-conscious that when I was offered mushroom soup by my host in a London restaurant in 1979, I asked for something else. A few years ago, Udeme James and her niece, Better Effiong joyfully told me they had seighted bad picked mushrooms in the flower beds. I screamed, and instructed that the mushrooms be thrown away. About four days later, they asked me if I enjoyed the soup they cooked and served the previous evening. I quickly apologise for not commending them for cooking a sumptous soup. When they told me the soup was mushroom soup, my eyes dilated in disbelief and fear. Straight away, my mind went to one of my uncle-in-laws who was blessed with five daughters and one son. Anytime I visited him at home and we were alone and he began to look over his shoulders, I knew what will happen next. He would whisper: “ FEMI, WOMEN ARE DEVILS.” Although he is gone now, I intend sometime in September to tell him on this page that women were not created to be devils. I know Udeme and Better will believe me because, ever since, I have not questioned their judgement on the edible mushrooms. One day, she will lecture us on edible mushrooms.
For women who can do this, their families will easily ride over the present national complaints that vegetables are scarce and expensive in the markets, that meat, crayfish, freshwater, and ocean fish are expensive and not within family reach, that children are growing up eating not enough proteins, especially the essential amino acids, and, therefore, developing the risk of becoming HIV-positive through nutritional deficiencies.
Mrs. Orabiyi and her daughter, Teddy, a 300-Level Economics student at the University of Lagos, must be laughing as they read these lines. They are my bosses at Life-Plus International, a private business cooperative that does many things, especially rabbit and mushroom farming.
Of the values of mushrooms to human existence, the following words from an expert’s review attempt to lift a veil… “1. Reishi: – High in antioxidants and beta-glucans – Supports immune system and overall health. 2. Chaga: – Rich in fibre, vitamins, and minerals – Contains antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds. 3. Shiitake: – Good source of vitamin D and copper – Supports immune system and cardiovascular health. 4. Oyster Mushrooms: – Low in calories and high in protein – Rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. 5. Lion’s Mane: – Supports brain health and cognitive function – May help reduce anxiety and depression. 6. Enoki: – Low in calories and high in fibre – Rich in vitamins and minerals, including potassium and copper. 7. Portobello: – Good source of vitamin D and copper – Supports immune system and overall health. 8. Maitake: – Rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants – May help support blood sugar control and weight management.
Mushrooms are a nutrient-dense food and can provide a range of health benefits when consumed as part of a balanced diet”.
With the foregoing, anyone who understands mushrooms may now gather empty maize cobs and go online to check for how to use them for mushroom farming. Better still, I would be glad to link them with Life Plus International.
