**3. Yam consumption**

Yam, sweet in flavor, is consumed as boiled yam (as cooked vegetable) or fufu or fried in oil (**Figure 8**) and then consumed. It is often pounded into a dough-like paste after boiling and is consumed with soup [3]. It is also processed into flour for use in the preparation of the paste. The tuber is the edible part of the yam plant with high carbohydrate content and low in fat and proteins and provides a good source of energy. Yam is an important source of minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, iron, carbohydrates, and vitamins such as riboflavin, thiamin, vitamin B, and vitamin C [55, 56]. Yam has some inherent characteristics which make it attractive and keep it in a high demand. First and foremost, it is rich in carbohydrates, especially starch;

**Figure 8.** *Prepared yam dishes of fufu, boiled yam, and fried yam.*

consequently, it has a multiplicity of end uses. Secondly, it is available all year round, making it preferable to other seasonal crops [13].

Yam contains products such as alkaloids (saponin and sapogenin) and proteins (dioscorin and diosgenin) which can cause side effects in humans and animals such as inflammations, allergic reactions, kidney problems, and interference with the metabolic system [57, 58]. However, these same properties of the yam plant are exploited in medicine for the treatment and management of conditions such as allergies, metabolic disorders, hypertension, inflammations, and hormonal irregularities [58–60]. Yam has been used in traditional medicine in Africa and among the Chinese and other Asiatic people to treat diseases like diabetes, to increase coronary circulation, and to prevent hypercholesterolemia [55, 61, 62]. Although the industrial use potential of yam has not been fully exploited, its use as an industrial starch has been established as the quality of some of the species is able to provide as much starch as in cereals [11, 63, 64].

In recent times, efforts have been made by the scientific community to investigate the suitability of yam to be fried into chips like French fries. In a study to investigate the effect of blanching and frying on the textural profile and appearance of yam for French fries [9], it was found that yam fries with desirable texture and color attributes can be produced with *Dioscorea rotundata* by blanching that yam species at 75–80°C for 5–8 min and frying at 180°C for 3–3.5 min.
