Healthy eating – Efo riro special served with eba or pounded yam

By Chinelo Nwagbo
Efo riro special served with eba or pounded yam
Healthy living is about making healthy choices every day that keeps one physically, mentally and spiritually fit. Any illness can be traced to be caused by poor nutritional intake (not consuming nutritious and balanced diet), environmental or genetic. Only a few people are aware of the effect of not eating right or not including a balanced food. Eating healthy and nutritious food helps in maintenance of good health and the prevention of diseases. Today‘s recipe Efo riro is a delicious traditional soup from Southwestern part of Nigeria and is enjoyed by many Nigerians. It is a tasty and nutritious dish that can be taken to help promote the healthy life. This soup stands as a unique dish among other dishes because of its taste, method of preparation, potential nutritive value, and therapeutic properties. It is rich in protein, vitamin A, C, E, folate, magnesium, potassium dietary fiber and iron. Efo riro has meat, fish and varieties of vegetables as it base ingredients. Studies have shown that regular consumption of vegetables helps to  keep fit, promote healthy living, prevent many diseases, reduce age-related negative processes in the body up to 40%, protect against cancer, treat digestive disorder, good for the prevention of, prevents cardiovascular disease such as hypertension, coronary disease, arteriosclerosis, asthma and eye disorders. Efo riro is a fundamental dish for people that want to take extra care of their health. It is also an ideal dish for pregnant women, nursing mothers for their well-being. Children need this food for physical growth and development. Regular intake of this soup helps the convalescing patients to recover quickly from their illness, replace worn out tissues and also build a strong immune system against diseases and infections and prevent constipation.
Recommendation
Vegetable or pumpkin and water leaves soup serve with eba or pounded yam is highly for those that want lo live a healthy life. It is also good for children to help in growth, physical and mental development and for those that want quick recovering from illness.

Ingredients Quantities
Shoko/ Spinach leaves one big bunch
Meat (tripe, cow skin) beef ½ kilo
Assorted Fish (smoked fish) 2 medium size
Stock fish one medium size
Fresh Tomatoes 3medium size
Bell peppers (tatashe) 2 medium size
Scotch Bonnets Pepper 2
fermented locust beans one teaspoon
Palm oil 1 Cooking-spoonful
Onions 1 medium size
Ground crayfish one tablespoonful
Seasoning cubes 2
Salt To taste
Method of preparation
Pick and wash the vegetables
Shred/cut into tiny bits.
To get less liquid in the soup, you can blanch the vegetables and set aside.

Wash the assorted meat and fish.
De-bone the smoked fish, and set all aside.
Blend the peppers and tomatoes, and set aside,
Season and cook the assorted meat and fish with onions, one seasoning cube, and a little salt. Cook until the liquid in the pot is well absorbed (dried up) and the meat and stock fish are tender In another dry pot, heat up the palm oil until it begins to smoke a little.
Add the ground tomatoes and peppers and fry for 15- 20minutes or until the mixture loses its sour taste.
Add the cooked meat and fish.
Add ground iru, ground crayfish and seasoning cube.
Mix thoroughly, cover and leave to boil for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, add the vegetables and salt to taste.
Mix well and leave to simmer for 5 minutes and your delicious
Efo riro soup is ready served with semovita or pounded yam.