Jerusalem artichokes contain a lot of inulin, which is a polysaccharide made from chains of fructose. That’s in contrast to the usual starch, which is a polysaccharide made from chains of glucose.
Many people have difficulty digesting inulin. One common result is very severe gas.
I’d hope – but don’t know – that if we ate it enough, we’d become better at digesting it.
We don’t really become better at digesting inulin but the bacteria in our guts can eat it multiply. But there a lot of different bacteria in our guts and some will produce gas, some lactate acetate and butyrate. You I cant stress this enough when trying to improve your gut microbiom you cant just add good food sources without restricting the bad ones like Starch and Sugar.
Oh, the winter freeze thaw cycle converts inulin to fructose so at different points in the winter Sunchoaks can be quite sweet.
@lordkiwi – Great stuff. I totally take your point about the gut microbiome.
One follow-up question: Reportedly, many people have a limited capacity to metabolize fructose. I have no idea whether these limits are hit with relatively low levels (e.g., I eat 20 figs) or require high levels (e.g., I drink a jumbo McD’s soda sweetened by HFCS). Do you know whether this would be a practical obstacle to sunchoke consumption?
Sooo. Humans can completely metabolize fructose. The metabolic path way is the same one the liver uses to process alcohol. Liver converts fructose and alcohol both into fatty acids the excess of which get stored in the liver leading us to the epidemic that is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Which fortunately is easily reversed with a ketogenic diet.
1 cup of suncokes have around 114 calories. A large sugar Mcdonalds coke is 224 (so says random nutrition facts) calories thats 50% glucose %50 Fructose for sugar sweetened and 45% glucose and 55% fructose for High fructose Corn Syrup(the 5% higher fructose in HFCS is unimportant).
If the sunchoke was all fructose you 1 cup of SC would give you the same amount of fructose as 1 large MD Coke along with just as many calories from glucose.
But generally speaking fructose is 3.9 calories per gram and absorbed calories from inulin are usually calculated to be about 1.5 calories per gram. So 1 cup of SC is about 43 cal absorbed vs 200+ for the drink
<< Humans can completely metabolize fructose. >>
My understanding is that up to 1/3 of people have difficulty absorbing more than small quantities of fructose in their small intestines. So much of the fructose (or inulin) that they consume never gets to the liver. Instead it passes into the large intestine.
I have never heard that. Fructose malabsorption can occur with a defective GLUT5 gene but a cohort of people as large as those that cant digest lactose is just not happening IMO.
Very little inulin broken down before reaching the cecum at the beginning of the large intestine as there is very little bacteria in a healthy small intestine.
How do I put this. Fructose is the devil but the reasons being come up with on the internet and media are so wrong and off base. Most sugars and Carbohydrates, with fructose being an exception, induce insulin resistance with over consumption. IR is the source of not a symptom of ,Diabetes, Heart Disease, Alzheimer’s and several other conditions. To protect sugar and carbs High fructose Corn Syrup has been made a scape goat. But the 5% more fructose in HFCS and Sucrose makes no difference at the end of the day when other sugars and carbs are overwhelming our diets.
But at the same time Fructose is worse in some ways for the reason I mentioned before. It’s processed the same as alcohol. It doesn’t raise blood sugar levels but it causes fatty liver and fat in the pancreases that speed on the development of Insulin resistance and Diabetes all the same.
However being a person that is regularly on a ketogenic diet. My liver is squeaky clean and can handle alcohol and fruit harvest.
<< I have never heard that. >>
<< Fructose is absorbed in the small intestine without help of digestive enzymes. Even in healthy persons, however, only about 25–50 g of fructose per sitting can be properly absorbed. People with fructose malabsorption absorb less than 25 g per sitting.>>
<< The second type of fructose intolerance is dietary fructose intolerance (DFI), also called fructose mal-absorption. DFI is quite common, affecting up to 30% of people in the [United States]. Its incidence is also difficult to evaluate since many people show no symptoms at all and its cause is not precisely known. >>
Oh, I can see this thread devolving into something else.
Disclaimer I would not trust the “American Dietetic Association (now the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics)” any more then a Brooklyn bridge salesman.
The two things I have done the most research on in the last year would have to be Ketogenic diets and Small intestinal Bacterial overgrowth. This DFI theory is interesting but its a theory that has not been followed up with serious research I could find since 1956. Most mentions including the wiki article you post have some variation of" Intolerance to fructose was first identified and reported in 1956." Idiosyncrasy to fructose - PubMed (nih.gov) and end there. At the same time hundreds of articals site an orginal Keto study from 1920 and Ketogenic Diet and Epilepsy: What We Know So Far (nih.gov) and stop there as if the amount of peer reviewed long term studies with follow up data do not exist.
But I digress, it(DFI) sounds like an interesting theory but I think evidence based research shows the pathology to be different. Its like going to the mechanic for a knocking sound thinking you need an oil change only to find out your radiator needed water. The knocking sound was real.
Anyway FODMAP, There is a lot of research going into proving this theory right now. Which would make fructose the end all be all of modern health issues. It is a big deal just not in the way they want it to be. Just because Carbs, Glucose and Fructose are worse then carbs and glucose alone doesn’t mean getting rid of fructose makes C and G good. Basically Carbs and Glucose are being protected at all cost.
Dietary fructose intolerance, fructan intolerance and FODMAPs (nih.gov)
I’m sympathetic to a critique of modern foods, including the excess of sucrose and, via starches, glucose in particular. And I credit a model in which excess carbs reduce insulin sensitivity.
But also humans did not evolve eating the quantity or quality (sweetness) of fruits available today, especially us growers. So I think it is reasonable to ask whether some amount of fructose is too much.
I planted Jerusalem artichokes in my yard for the first time last spring. I have some white fuseau and red fuseau. I think it’s just about time to harvest, they’re starting to get yellow and lose their leaves.
With six plants currently in the ground (and who knows how many will spring up from them in the future?), I’m assuming I will have more than I can eat in one sitting. Is there anything in particular I should do to store them?
I was planning to just clean them up and put them in a paper bag in the pantry, but wasn’t sure if they need to be kept cool, or refrigerated, or anything else.
I’ve also read conflicting accounts about just leaving them in the ground until I need them. Some people say you can just dig up one plant at a time, as needed, and the rest will stay happy underground pretty much indefinitely. Some people say that they tried that and their tubers rotted in the ground and were unusable.
Does anyone here have any first hand experience with either storing the tubers indoors, or leaving them out in the ground until needed?
The tubers do not store well indoors. They dry up quickly and shrink up unlike potatoes. It is best to leave them in the ground. Beware of voles they are a favorite of theirs.
This one, they also get sweeter after a few freeze thaw cycles. Of course if you expect to freeze solid for the winter then you should try a unheated garage.
Nothing wrong with storing them in soil inside
I grow mine in a row of buried pots. Whenever I want to harvest some I pull up a pot, dump it out, and return a few choice tubers to the pot with some refreshed soil. Then I hose off the pickings and take them inside.
I find they keep for a few weeks in a crisper drawer. And they keep all winter in the ground. So the pots let me get one crisper’s worth at a time, and prevent runnering.
As for use…my favorite thing to do is make chips. Pan fried or roasted with a little salt…the oil and heat makes them wonderfully sweet.
But what I do with most of them is slice them, dehydrate them and then Vitamix them into flour. I mix about a tablespoon into my breakfast every day all year. Basically: too much inulin makes you gassy. But some is a very good prebiotic fiber.
Great looking harvest. You did good.
There are so many varieties of Jerusalem artichokes out there. I’ve mostly limited myself to clumping types which are easy to harvest and they don’t run around.
Fun fact: a portion of the complex polyploid genome of Jerusalem artichokes is very similar to annual sunflowers and they can be successfully hybridized as long as the Jerusalem artichoke is the seed parent. The resulting hybrids are tetraploids and can be further crossed between siblings, but result in sterile mules if crossed back to either parent.
One of my breeding projects is to develop Jerusalem artichoke type plants with flowers more like that of annual sunflowers. I’m doing lots of other crosses within the genus too though.
I am growing these for the first time and noticed the flowers smell like chocolate! Is there any way to make an extract from these?
Great thread. I have a patch growing in my garden. I didn’t plant it. Maybe animal cultivation. They do get tall (8-9 feet). I thought it was sunflower at the beginning of summer.
you should probably just pave it
