Cassava Proving: March 16, 2012
Chintheche, Malawi
Richard Pitt
ENOUGH TO SURVIVE BUT NOT TO THRIVE
Introduction:
The intention to prove cassava is based on the fact that it is one the most popular staple foods in the
African continent. Everybody grows it and it is essential for the nutritional wellbeing of many of the
poorest people in the region, who often have no choice but to eat it. However, most people love it and
are content to eat it, along with maize twice a day.
Its value is that it grows very easily in most regions. You simply replant stems of last year’s harvest and it
grows. It is quite drought resistant and doesn’t need fertilizer.
However, although it gives a great sense of satiety after eating, and for poor people who experience
hunger, a great sense of relief from actual hunger or the memory of it, its nutritional value is poor.
Both the root and leaves are eaten, often together. The leaves have more protein than the roots.
Botany:
Cassava’s latin name is Manihot esculenta and is also known as yucca, mogo, mandioca and kamoteng
kahoy. In a food form, it is commonly called fufu, garri, ugali or nsima. Each country has its own name. It
is a member of the Euphorbiaceae family, in which other homeopathic remedies are found, such as
Croton tiglium, Hura brasiliensis, Ricus communis and Jatropha.
Background Thoughts:

Cassava is the perfect food for subsistence cultures in Africa. It supplies the bare necessities for
life and fills you up. It satisfies a person’s hunger. It is a good famine reserve as it has a wide
growing schedule and is adaptable to drought and unpredictable weather. It is reliable.
•
It therefore relieves hunger in the most immediate way. It gives respite to the millions who
don’t get enough to eat each day (1/4 of sub saharan Africa) and palliates the collective
experience of hunger in the continent.
•
But it doesn’t give enough to live well. It is just enough, and also takes quite a lot of effort to
farm. It is not easy.
•
It perfectly suits the subsistence farming culture of much of Africa, but such a mono mania for
cassava sustains and reflects the lack of variety and adaptability in a culture.
•
It doesn’t let a society leave the “here and now” of survival and the desire for immediate satiety
– the full belly.
Nutrition:
Cassava root is a poor source of protein. Despite the very low quantity, the quality of cassava root
protein is fairly good in terms of essential amino acids. Methionine, cysteine and cystine are, however,
limiting amino acids in cassava root.
Cassava is a highly productive crop in terms of food calories produced per unit land area per unit of
time, significantly higher than other staple crops. Cassava can produce food calories at rates exceeding
250,000 cal/hectare/day compared with 176,000 for rice, 110,000 for wheat, and 200,000 for maize.
No continent depends as much on root and tuber crops in feeding its population as does Africa. In the
humid and subhumid areas of tropical Africa, it is either a primary staple food or a secondary co-staple.
In Ghana for example, cassava and yams occupy an important position in the agricultural economy, and
contribute about 46% of the agricultural gross domestic product. Cassava accounts for a daily caloric
intake of 30% in Ghana, and is grown by nearly every farming family.
The importance of cassava to many Africans is epitomised in the Ewe language (a language spoken in
Ghana, Togo and Benin) name for the plant, agbeli, meaning "there is life". The price of cassava has
risen significantly in the last half decade, and lower-income people have turned to other carbohydraterich foods, such as rice.
Toxicity of Cassava:
Cassava contains anti-nutrition factors and toxins. It must be properly prepared before consumption.
Improper preparation of cassava can leave enough residual cyanide to cause acute cyanide intoxication
and goiters and may even cause ataxia or partial paralysis
The so-called sweet (actually not bitter) cultivars can produce as little as 20 milligrams of cyanide (CN)
per kilogram of fresh roots, whereas bitter ones may produce more than 50 times as much (1 g/kg).
Cassavas grown during drought are especially high in these toxins.[ A dose of 40 mg of pure cassava
cyanogenic glucoside is sufficient to kill a cow.
It has also been linked to tropical calcific pancreatitis in humans, leading to chronic pancreatitis.
Symptoms of acute cyanide intoxication appear four or more hours after ingesting raw or poorly
processed cassava: vertigo, vomiting, and collapse. In some cases, death may result within one or two
hours.
Chronic, low-level cyanide exposure is associated with the development of goiter and with tropical
ataxic neuropathy, a nerve-damaging disorder that renders a person unsteady and uncoordinated.
Severe cyanide poisoning, particularly during famines, is associated with outbreaks of a debilitating,
irreversible paralytic disorder called konzo and, in some cases, death.
(Source of information from Wikipedia)
Proving Overview:
Great hunger, with weakness. Increased salivation, with sour, bitter taste. Much spitting. Sores inside
and outside the mouth. Nausea and vomiting, churning in stomach, thirst, hunger, feeling about to
vomit with increased saliva. Diarrhea.
Pain in the feet, extending up and down, burning in the feet, staggering, not being in control, heavy of
legs, sensation of paralysis. Weakness felt in feet extending up the leg.
Dreams of danger, knives, threats, death, killing, fighting, fear, worry.
Weakness, aching of body.
Proving comments:
The symptoms of the proving has to fit the psoric miasm. The feeling of lack, of hunger, of constant
effort merely to survive.
The great hunger felt may also reveal its need in the opposite, of no hunger at all and especially the
inability to eat cassava.
Its affinity for the whole gastro intestinal tract and also the nervous system may make it applicable in
cases of AIDS, especially when cassava can no longer be eaten and/or when sores are found in the
mouth, along with weakness of the whole system.
The Proving:
Mind:
(13): Day Five: Feeling fearful.
Head:
(13): Day Three: Headache forehead, hammering pain, < morning > evening.
(12) Day Two: Headache in morning with hunger. Hunger at night, along with having heavy pains in the
whole body as if I have been beaten with a stick. Day Three: Hunger in the morning with headache.
General body pains. Day Four: 3am. Headache, with hunger, pains of body and itching of eyes.
(9): Day Three: headache at night. Abdomen also upset with need to vomit. Day Four: headache with
weakness of body. Day Six: headache in forehead, with flue feeling.
(7) Day One: Headache forehead, < evening. Day Six: Headache and sweating at night.
(10): Day Two and Three: headache, neck pains, vision affected (blindness).
(6): Day Two: Headache, forehead
Mouth:
(14): Day One: Taste bitter,
(14): Day One: Salivation, excessive.
(14): Day One: Spitting.
(13) Day Two. Sour taste, as if eaten bad lemons. Soreness in the mouth, in the upper palate and lower
lips.
(13) Day Three: Feeling as if sores in the mouth.
(12) Day Six: Increased saliva, with headache, tiredness and hunger. Feeling about to vomit, along with
increased saliva.
Throat:
(2): Day Two: Pain throat, extending to stomach, as if eating hot food < morning on waking.
Stomach:
(14): Day One: Nausea, < eating (cassava). Aversion to normal food.
(13): Day Two: Pain in stomach like something is rolling inside.
(13) Day five: Increased hunger with fever < evening.
(5) Day One: Nausea and stomach churning and stirring. (lasted two days.) Also on on 4th and 5th day,
with weakness.
(12) Day Two: Increased hunger in the morning, with headache. Day Four: 3am: Hunger and tiredness,
with pains in the body, and itching of eyes, with headache. 8pm: Hungry and tired, itching of eyes,
headache, abdominal pains, body pains and later sleeplessness. Day Five: 1am. Hunger with
sleeplessness, tirednesss. Feeling cold. Also feeling thirsty. 5am. Tired, cold, hungry and increased saliva
in mouth. Headache. Day 6: 5am: Hunger, with headache, tiredness, saliva increased, thirsty, tired.
10am: Hunger, thirst, headache. Nausea, feeling about to vomit. 2.30pm. Thirst, headache, hunger,
about to vomit.
(2) Day One: Hunger and coldness. Day two. Pain in stomach with headache. Day four: loss of appetite,
pain in stomach with pain in muscles and headache. Day Five: The same.
(1): Day One: Hunger and weakness of the body. Day Two. The same.
(4): Day Three: Hunger, with pains in body.
(3) Day One: Increased hunger (30 minutes after taking the medicine). < eating. Made her more hungry.
(8) Day One: Increased hunger, even after taking food < morning and evening.
(9) Day Four: Stomach/abdomen upset, vomited once. Stomach churning, stirring, with increased saliva.
Felt weak. Day Five, Increased hunger, with weakness and headache.
(10): Day One: Increased hunger, with headache and sneezing.
(6): Day One: Stomach ache in evening.
(16): Day One: Hunger increased on waking in morning. Day Three: Hunger with weakness.
(15): Day Two: Stomach churning. Increased hunger in morning, but eating does not >.
(17-30c): Day One: Stomach/abdominal pain, with headache, tiredness, dizziness and desire to vomit.
Rectum:
(4): Day Two: Diarrhea, 3 times in two hours < early morning. Weakness after.
Chest:
(3) Day One: Heart beating faster.
Extremities:
(13) Day Two: Staggering, as if has taken beer.
(13) Day Six: Joint pain left arm. Pain knee joint.
(7): Day Two: pain in the right foot and ankle. Day Three: Pain moves to the left foot for three days. Top
of the foot.
(16): Day Two: Pain left hip extending down to foot. Leg heavy, difficult to pick up and use. Paretic
sensation.
(8): Day Two. Weakness in the feet going up to the knees < exertion.
Sleep:
(05): Day Six: Sleepless night.
(12): Day Three: Sleepless that night. Day Four: Sleeplessness.
(2): Day Four: Sleepless, along with loss of appetite.
(7): Sleepless for four night. Very unusual. Whole body felt weak and idle. Only sleeping about two hours
a night.
(3): Day One: Was sleeping and woke up with heart beating. Sleepless, waking after 3am.
(1): Difficult to sleep, feeling heat in body and weak feeling.
Dreams:
(14) Day One: I was in a big town where lots of cars were moving in the streets. I wanted to cross the
road and saw a crowd of people also wanting to cross and so I stopped them and said not to cross while
the cars are still moving. We had to wait until it was time for pedestrians and we all crossed but I
realized I had left my son behind and I was calling him. Then I woke up feeling very worried because I
had left him behind.
(13): Day One: Two people were quarreling and supported one of them. There was a verbal fight.
(13): Day Three: I was arrested in South Africa for 6 months for overstaying my visa. Day Five: People
were coming for me with knives, trying to kill me. I woke up scared.
(1): Day Five: Bad dream, as if dead people were trying to catch me. Bad dreams for the next 3 nights.
Fearful dreams. One a person had a mask, not sure if man or woman. He/she was trying to kill me with a
stick. A big snake was chasing me and I ran and jumped in a river. I was going to be killed.
(8): Day ?: Dream that a group of Europeans were building a big house for us and later they allowed us
to enter the side of the house.
(6): Day 5: Dreams of a snake running through the window.
(10): Day 5: Dreaming of walking on a bridge and falls into a river.
(16): Day Five: Dream of two snakes chasing each other. I ran away, scared.
(12): I was flying and fell down among sharpened trees. A huge man who was very angry threw me
against a tree. I was very scared and fearful.
Fever:
(13): Day Five: Fever < evening. For two days. Hunger with fever.
(12): Day Three: Morning: Feeling cold but feet feel as if they are burning. Fever and sweating at night,
but feeling chilled.
(15): Day One: Feeling hot, much more than usual < 4pm – 5am. Heat feeling in chest.
Generalities:
(13) Day Three: General body pains and feeling weak.
(12): Day Five: Tired and unsettled, feeling thirsty and weak in the body.
(2): Day Five: Pain in whole body, with headache and stomach ache. General tiredness.
(1): Day Three and Four: Heat and weakness of the body in the night.
(4): Day Four: General weakness of the body for 3 days.
(8): Day One-Two: Weakness of the body, < morning, from feet to knee joints.
(10): Day Five and Six: General tiredness of the body.
Two provers: #13 and #14, subsequently took three doses of 30c potency in one day:
Prover #13:
Day One: stomach/abdominal pains, headache, tiredness, dizziness and desire to vomit. Later in day has
headache in temple, feeling hunger with abdominal pains and itching of the eyes. That night had a
dream which was very frightening and was trembling and restless.
Day Two: Increased hunger, more saliva and spitting with more saliva, heavy eyes, abdominal pains,
sores on the mouth, especially the left side of upper mouth. He felt colder in the body, with desire to
vomit and continuous stomach pains. Saliva was sour. That night he had a bad dream where the chief
had sent people to kill him. He woke anxious, worrying about his life and what will happen. He was
restless and sleepless, with a headache in the forehead and vertex. His heart was beating fast, and was
trembling and cold.
Day Three: 3am. continued to have stomach/abd pains, > lying on the abdomen and < sitting. He had
itching of the eyes, frontal headache, more saliva in the mouth, spitting with a sour taste, desire to
vomit and sores in the upper mouth on the outside. Feeling hungry and sleepless. Same symptoms
continued into the early morning. 5pm. Continued headache, coldness, desire to vomit, tired, itching of
the eyes and heaviness, pains in the joints, esp knees and desire to go to bed and rest. 8pm Joint pains
continue, general body pains, pounding frontal headache, and restlessness in bed. Dreamt that night
that the eyes were itching and heavy.
Day Four: 5am. Same symptoms as before, with sour saliva, increase hunger, tired etc. 11pm. Headache,
cold, bad dreams which woke him up. Itching eyes, joint pains, sour saliva, spitting etc.
Day Five: Same symptoms, including itching and heaviness of eyes, hunger, body and joint pains etc.
9pm. Same sx including sores on the lips. Dreamt that was put in a fire by someone he didn’t know. Felt
scared and afraid.
Day Six: Sour saliva, sores in mouth, pain in joints, increased thirst, abd pains, headaches. Also had new
sx of forgetting somethings which had never happened before. Also feeling cold. 5pm. Increased hunger,
thirst, stomachache, abd pains, tired and weak.
Day Seven: still forgetting things, even words he normally uses. 11am. Frontal headache, abd pains,
forgetting things. Some dizziness and tingling of legs.
Prover #14:
Within a few minutes of taking the remedy, felt as if to retch and vomit but didn’t and then felt
headache. A few hours later, felt a burning pain in both feet, which lasted till the following morning.
Day Two: Felt a headache on waking. In the evening, felt the burning pain in the feet which lasted until
the morning.
Day Three: Burning pain in the feet again.
Day Five: In evening, from 7pm, felt intense burning pain in feet extending up to the knees. Pains were
better by the morning.