The Contest - Promote Your Geographical Green || Bitter Leaf (Vernonia amygdalina)|| by @tsunamihimself set at 100% power up

Greetings dear friends @steemgeography, I'll be happy to make my own entry on this ongoing contest by @bright-obias. This contest is about promoting and sharing with you guys about my geographical plant. I have chosen a herb to talk about, just reading as I share with you guys both my personal experiences with this herb.

My Geographical plant/herb is locally known in Bayelsa State, Otuoke is BITTER LEAF.

Bitter Leaf (Vernonia amygdalina), a member of the daisy family, is a small shrub that grows in tropical Africa. It typically grows to a height of 6.6–16.4 ft. The leaves are elliptical and up to 7.9 in long. Its bark is rough.

The leaves are employed traditionally in the treatment of skin infections, liver and kidney cleansing and most popularly for its blood sugar regulatory ability.

How Important is Your Geographical Plant to your Area

In my locality, this plant serve as vegetable and herb for various types of food that requires vegetable /leaves.
There is no reason to buy skin care products or blood sugar medications once you have this leaf. Though it comes with a process which I would like to share and engage you with.
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In my geographical area, i was made to understand the importance of this herb. Growing up we took too many sugary and you know, everything and after that what comes next is the purging and stomach pains (normally called jedi jedi here) . Lol its true. Now because of this herbs utility use, it is also used to prepare the popular bitter leaf soup (Onugbo soup) widely eaten by the eastern part of Nigeria. This leaf is bought in bulk and all of us (my siblings) would be asked to come and wash the leaf, this is done because this herb is originally very bitter and if not washed properly would make the soup very bitter also.

HOW IT IS WASHED?
A reasonable amount of this leaf would be put in a bowl with just enough quantity of water. We wash as if we were washing clothes (without soap though) and after a while, it starts bringing out foam, green in colour and like the water.

This is just the first step.

We would sieve the water out of the bowl and get ready for the next round which now would not be as difficult as the first. We repeat the same process by pouring water into the bowl and start washing again. From home, there was one way my mom thought us to wash the herbs that made it difficult but was very nice in its finished product, during the second time washing, we would add a little red oil to the bowl, this would significantly remove all the foam that used to make washing it sweet, then we would keep on washing and washing until she tests it and sees that it's now ok for use.

HOW IT'S BEEN USED BY A SUGAR REGULATOR STOMACH CLEANSER

As a child, when my mom or dad feels we have taken too much sugar or junks during the week, they get this leaf for us under the camouflage that we would use it to cook (we later knew the truth). After it is bought, we would wash just as i explained above then as i told before, the water would be sieved and kept aside.

In the night, we would be bought sweets to hold in our hands and a portion of the juice shared equally in cups to all of us. The drill was after drinking, you would immediately put the sweet in your mouth so that we wouldn't throw up.
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After taking the juice we would all be expecting to purge from the following day (due to the cleansing from the herbs), we repeated all this process till we got a little older as we are now and as you are thinking, YES!!! we will all eat the soup with joy in our hearts, it could be use to prepare bitter leaf (onugbu soup), egusi , and added sometimes used in ogbono and okra soup.
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What's The Lifespan Of Your Geographical Plant?

Vernonia amygdalina is a perennial herb. This means that it can stay for a very long time of as long as human allow it. It does not have a number of years it stays. Just like mango and guava. They're perennial.
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This is my Introduction post here