Yucca Plant

A couple of years ago we realized how prolifically the Yucca plant grows here in Kansas. We had them all over the fields next to our house. Isaiah and I did a study on them and found out that most of the plant is edible, it makes an excellent shampoo and there are moths that rely on the plant for survival. I hope we have Yucca near our next home!
Cassava-based dishes are widely consumed wherever the plant is cultivated. Some of these dishes have regional, national, or ethnic importance.[12] Cassava must be cooked properly to detoxify it before it is eaten.
Cassava heavy cakeCassava can be cooked in various ways. The soft-boiled root has a delicate flavor and can replace boiled potatoes in many uses: as an accompaniment for meat dishes, or made into purées, dumplings, soups, stews, gravies, etc.. Deep fried (after boiling or steaming), it can replace fried potatoes, with a distinctive flavor. Foufou is made from the starchy cassava-root flour. Tapioca (or fecula) is an essentially flavourless starchy ingredient produced from treated and dried cassava (manioc) root and used in cooking. It is similar to sago and is commonly used to make a milky pudding similar to rice pudding. Boba tapioca pearls are made from cassava root. It is also used in cereals for which several tribes in South America have used it extensively. It is also used in making cassava cake, a popular pastry. Cassava is used in making eba a popular food in Nigeria. It also soaked in cold water to make gari.
The juice of the bitter cassava, boiled to the consistency of thick syrup and flavored with spices, is called cassareep. It is used as a basis for various sauces and as a culinary flavoring, principally in tropical countries. It is exported chiefly from Guyana.
Frozen cassava leaves from the Philippines sold at a Los Angeles marketThe leaves can be pounded to a fine chaff and cooked as a palaver sauce in Sierra Leone, usually with palm oil but vegetable oil can also be used. Palaver sauces contain meat and fish as well. It is necessary to wash the leaf chaff several times to remove the bitterness.
You can Eat the petals, buds, or flowers directly from the field, or in a salad (the flowers have a clean, mild taste somewhat reminiscent of snow peas), or cooked into a soup or stew.4 Yucca flowers and fruits about to be made into a soupHarvest the fruits one to three weeks after the plants flower. Just reach up and pull or cut them off. Leave those that would require a ladder to the insects -- it's not worth the risk to life and limb to use a stepladder on desert sands. The longer you wait, the less bitter they will be, but if you wait too long the seeds will dry and become hard, and the seedpods will start to crack open. The photo shows flowers and fruits about to be made into a soup (there's some Anaheim pepper in the pot also). The cut fruits look a lot like okra, but actually have more of a consistency like potatoes when cooked.
http://www.wikihow.com/Eat-Yucca
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava
http://eatmoreherbs.com/zine/yuca.html

Other uses
Native American tribes in the southwestern United States and Northern Mexico found numerous uses for the yucca, dating back hundreds of years. Several tribes, including the Western Apaches on the Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona, use the plant today. The most common use seems to be for hygiene. Roots of the yucca baccata are pounded to remove extracts that are made into shampoo and soap. The Apaches also use yucca leaf fibers to make dental floss and rope. Historically, Western Apaches mixed ground juniper berries with yucca fruit to make a gravy. They also made a fermented drink from juniper berries and yucca fruit pounded to a pulp and soaked in water. Other Native American groups used yucca soap to treat dandruff and hair loss .

Native Americans also used yucca plants for a variety of other non-medical purposes, including making sandals, belts, cloth, baskets, cords, and mats. Such uses can still be found today among Hopi, Papago, and Ute Indians. The Zuni used a mixture of soap made from yucca sap and ground aster to wash newborn babies to stimulate hair growth. Navajos would tie a bunch of yucca fibers together and use it as a brush for cleaning metates.

The primary medical use of yucca is to treat arthritis and joint pain and inflammation. Native Americans used sap from the leaves in poultices or baths to treat skin lesions, sprains, inflammation, and bleeding. Constituents of the yucca are used today to treat people with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis . The plant's medical properties are found in saponins, precursors of cortisone, which prevent the release of toxins from the intestines that restrict normal cartilage formation. Saponins are produced naturally in the body by the adrenal glands. It is believed yucca works best for arthritis when taken over an extended period of time.
Yucca extract is used to treat a variety of other conditions, including migraine headaches, colitis, ulcers, wounds, gout, bursitis, hypertension (high blood pressure), and high LDL cholesterol (also called bad cholesterol). Liver, kidney, and gallbladder disorders are also treated with yucca extract.
A number of commercial uses for yucca extract have been found, including adding it to root beer, alcoholic beer, and cocktail mixers as a foaming agent. The bittersweet dark brown extract is also used as an additive in ice cream and other foods.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2603/is_0007/ai_2603000747/