Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Groundnut is the peanut, Arachis hypogaea. Despite the name it is not a true nut. It is a legume, like beans and peas, and its pods ripen under the soil.
In West Africa it is both a staple food and a home remedy. In Hausa it is called gyada. Cooks use the paste in soups and stews, and the oil for frying.
As a food, groundnut is well studied and genuinely nourishing. As a traditional remedy, human evidence is thin. Long use in a culture is not proof that something works, and it is not proof that it is safe.
The big safety issue is not the plant itself. Peanut is one of the most common causes of severe food allergy. Badly stored nuts can also carry a mould poison called aflatoxin.
Most of what groundnut does comes from its nutrition, not from a drug-like action.
It is dense in energy, protein and unsaturated fat. That is why peanut pastes are used to treat severe child malnutrition. This effect is well established in people.
In human trials, nut-rich diets improve cholesterol numbers a little. The fibre, plant sterols and unsaturated fats likely explain much of that.
In cell and animal studies, resveratrol and tannins from the red skins appear to act against inflammation. Whether eating groundnut does the same in people is not established.
Groundnut oil softens skin much as any plain oil does. There is no good human evidence that it heals wounds or clears rashes.
For babies at high risk of allergy, early and regular peanut feeding trains the immune system to accept it. This is shown in people, and it changed feeding advice in many countries. It is done with a doctor's guidance, not alone.
You will meet groundnut mostly as food.
Raw, boiled and roasted nuts are sold shelled or in the shell. Ground paste, often called peanut butter, is the next most common form. Groundnut flour is used in porridges and baking.
In West African cooking, the paste thickens soups and stews. Kuli-kuli is a fried cake made from paste with much of the oil pressed out.
Cold-pressed groundnut oil is sold for cooking and for skin and hair. Refined peanut oil, sometimes labelled arachis oil, has most protein removed. It also appears as a carrier oil inside some medicines.
Peanut-based therapeutic pastes exist for treating severe child malnutrition. These are medical products given by health workers. Measured peanut powders for allergy treatment are prescription products in some countries.
Groundnut came from South America. Portuguese and other traders carried it to West Africa in the sixteenth century. It spread fast and became a cash crop and a daily food.
Hausa-speaking communities knew it as gyada. It was grown widely across the Sahel and traded as nuts, paste and oil.
Healers and households used it in several ways. The paste was given to thin or sick people to build weight. Nursing mothers were offered groundnut soup to support milk.
The oil was rubbed on dry skin and hair, and warmed for massage. Crushed nuts were sometimes applied to sores.
These uses are recorded history, not proof. This page describes them; it does not tell you to use them.
Some reactions to Groundnut need urgent care. Call your local emergency number or go to an emergency department straight away — do not wait to see whether it passes.
Call emergency services at once if you or anyone else has any of these after eating groundnut:
Swelling of the lips, tongue or throat. Trouble breathing, wheezing or a tight chest. A hoarse voice or trouble swallowing.
Widespread hives, sudden vomiting, feeling faint, or collapse.
If you carry an adrenaline auto-injector, use it first, then call for help. Lie the person down with their legs raised.
See your doctor, without rushing, if you get an itchy mouth, mild rash or stomach upset after groundnut. That needs allergy testing before you eat it again.
See your doctor if long-term stomach pain, yellow skin or dark urine follow regular eating of poorly stored nuts.
Groundnut is an ordinary food almost everywhere, with no special licence needed to sell or eat it.
In the UK, EU and USA, peanut is a named allergen that must be declared on food labels. Regulators in these places also set legal limits for aflatoxin in nuts.
Peanut allergy powders, such as Palforzia, are prescription medicines in the USA and EU.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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