Garri and Semovita, which is a better swallow?

I get asked this question by Nigerian swallow lovers like me. A family friend came to visit and shared with us his weight loss journey.  How rejecting swallows made him fall sick and they thought it was malaria. His wife forced him to eat some eba after three days. While enjoying eba with hot, fresh okra soup, he started to sweat and feel happy. That was the end of his malaria.

After the meal, he noticed that the fever and cold disappeared. Then, his wife told him that she knew he was sick because he missed swallow. How can a man who couldn’t stay without swallowing some fufu decide to stop eating anything swallows? He stopped  because his weight loss instructor advised said that “Nigerian swallows are fattening” Lol.

Anyways, he is still on that weight loss journey but with swallows included in small quantities.

Back to the question of Eba and semo.

My answer has always been that… “Even though I have my reasons for choosing garri over every other Nigerian swallows, That doesn’t mean that garri is the best swallow in Nigeria.

So, garri and semovita, which is better?

WHY I PICKED GARRI AS MY BEST SWALLOW

Pounded yam used to be my favourite especially with any draw soup like ogbono soup or okra soups. This continued until I came to fully understand the digestive system. What can cause or prevent bowel movement.

I love pounded yam honestly but I eat more of garri now because of the fiber in Garri. Garri has the most fiber for anyone interested in easy and healthy bowel movement. We need fiber daily. The reason some people do not like eba is the reason I eat eba MORE. Pounded yam and other forms of swallow fufu are smooth and nice to swallow but the roughness of eba is what makes it better.

They are all carbs and energy suppliers but eba has fiber on top. Inability to use the toilet properly can leave one’s digestive system uncomfortable. When you go to toilet, sometimes you are forced to use air fresheners before leaving. You spray before any other person enters. Most family toilets are like mine where we have air fresheners permanently stationed beside the toilets to help users refresh the air in the bathroom before leaving. Why?

Imagine all that smell in your body for two, three days… That’s what happens when you have difficulty using the toilet. All that bad smell remains stuffed in your system, gradually poisoning. That’s why we need fiber. What other carb can give the amount of roughages we get in garri? I can’t think of any yet.

WHY I BUY GARRI THAT STILL HAS SOME CHAFF

When we shop for garri, we don’t go for the well sieved, VERY smooth and powdery garri. We go for the rough one. The garri that still has a little chaff in it is the best for the digestive system. When we see garri sellers blowing out those tiny little chaff to make the garri powdery and smooth, let’s educate them if we can.

Good swallows shouldn’t be too smooth to feel, should have some fiber (Fiber) to help us with easy toileting. With fiber in our food, churning and mixing is easy for the system. Passing out stool is also easy for the anus. The anus needs some pressure when pushing out old food. What else provides that pressure if not fiber (Roughages/chaff).

WHICH IS A BETTER SWALLOW?

We all have reasons why we think our favourite swallows are the best. For me, eba is a better form of swallow because of it’s fiber content. In the last few years, eba nas come to gain more acceptance in Nigerian homes. There was a time that some people felt that eba is for low income earners and the rich would go for semo, wheat and other expensive forms of swallow but that has really changed.

We had a guest that I really respected and thought “wow, even though he requested for swallows without specifying, let me give him a respectable swallow kind of” I asked that they quickly make pounded yam and wheat swallow as we already had soup available.

Do you know what happened when he came to the dining table? He looked at both the eba and semo and told us that he used to prefer those in the past but that as one gets older, it’s good to go with more healthy.

Asked if there is garri and that he was willing to wait for water to boil so his eba can be made. That he always looks forward to having some roughage these days and I’m like ” So no be me alone come dey prefer garri oh?

ALL SWALLOWS ARE AWESOME

All 11 swallows we have in Nigeria like the amala, semo, poundo, wheat meal, swworted tuwos, and all, they are all good and awesome. They are all nutritious. They all provide our daily energy needs. No swallow is actually better than the other but in recent times, like I said earlier, I chose eba because of the fiber content of garri.

For poundo lovers, have you seen our raw blender pounded yam?