"I’m curious to know what you do with all that yellow sweet potato you buy each week [Austerity eating, Malaya April 28]. Wouldn’t four kilos of camote leave a lot of gas in one’s system? I don’t mind eating camote, but I won’t be able to handle all that wind."

Anything you eat that your digestive system is not familiar with will give you gas. Gas is another name for mild indigestion. Your system has not produced the juices, enzymes, to digest new food. Keep eating sweet potato, in small quantities at first, and soon the necessary digestive juices will be produced by the stomach to handle this unfamiliar food.

Filipinos who are non-bean eaters get gas from eating the smallest quantity of beans. Consider the Mexicans. They eat beans every meal. They don’t get gas from beans. There is no epidemic of indigestion in Mexico. No polluted air emanates from Mexico.

To non-camote eating Filipinos, it is the fiber of the camote that causes the indigestion. Sweet potato, being a root crop, provides a lot of good, much-needed roughage. Your stomach will soon be producing more digestive juices to handle this camote roughage. Same with people who are unable to handle milk due to lack of the digestive lactase. But drinking a bit of milk at a time will usually create the needed digestive juices to overcome such intolerance.

Whole large (almost a pound) camote pieces are problematic to cook. Baking involves an oven or microwave which most do not have. And even if they do have these, the electricity or LPG consumed is unjustifiable.

Boiling (cooking submerged in a pot of water) makes the outer part mashy, while the interior is still raw and inedible. In these days of high fuel bills, boiling takes more than half-hour. Too much fuel wasted.

Instead, peel and cut a kilo of camote into bite-size cubes. With half a cup of water, just to wet the bottom of the pan, steam the camote under very very low heat. By the time the water simmers (3 minutes) the cubes are almost done. Leave covered until desired tenderness. In a covered container in the refrigerator, the cooked camote provides a filling snack; great as carbohydrate side-dish during meals instead of rice, as extender for most Filipino dishes like apritada, pochero, curry, sautéed veggies, stews, soups, desserts. My PT brings a pitcher-ful of camote frostie, which gives him energy as he does his work at the gym all day.

Camote: It’s healthy, it’s not imported, it’s cheap. It was planted by impoverished Filipino farmers. Filipino farmers earn profit from camote because, thank God, politicians haven’t yet created a camote cartel.

Mashed camote, just like mashed potato: Beat an egg for camote/ground beef patties for breakfast; camote custard; camote-raisin loaf.