White Lupin (Lupinus albus) is an annual plant in the family Fabacceae, native to Southern Europe. It has a wide distribution in the Mediterranean region, and usually grows in meadows, grassy slopes, pastures, on sandy and acid soils. It is cultivated for its edible seeds, as a green manure, forage, and erosion control. White lupin is known as lupini in Italian, altramuces or chochos in Spanish, and tremocos in Portuguese.
White lupin grows 1.2m x 0.3m, with palmately leaves of 5-7 divisions, 2.5-5 cm long, smooth above, and white and hairy below. The hermaphrodite (having both the male and female organs) white flower are borne in terminal racemes, and bloom from Jun to July. The seeds are ripen from August to September.
The seeds contain toxic alkaloids that can be leached out by soaking them overnight in salted water and discarding the soaked water. It is also necessary to change the water once during cooking. The protein-rich seeds are cooked and used in savoury dish or pickled in brine, or used for different food, such as vegan sausages and lupin tofu, roasted as a snack, or ground into lupin flour.
White lupin is an easy to grow plant, and will grow in any moderately good soil. It prefers sunny location and a light acidic soil but can tolerate adverse conditions.
Learn how to grow really fresh, tasty organic vegetables even if you live in a small apartment. The vegetables bought in supermarket will never match those that you grow yourself. They will be fresher, healthier and tastier, and compared to store-bought organic vegetables, they will be much, much cheaper. To learn more, Click Here!
All pages of The Flowering Garden are governed by the GNU Free Documentation License and may be printed out for use as long as derivative works observe the same license. No other form of reproduction is permitted without the written permission of The Flowering Garden. All third-party photographs may be reused only according to the licensing terms as specified. This is a Christian-run site. To know our belief, click on Introducing God.
