By Mukaila Kareem
I recently had a very short trip to Nigeria, but unfortunately I couldn’t see many family members and friends due to time constraints coupled with travel logistics. I want to make this upfront confession because this article was inspired by my physical presence on Nigerian shores, and I feel the need to fess up. My inability to connect with family and friends was absolutely not out of disrespect. To use a word common in everyday Nigerian speech, in our day to day human “hustle,” metabolic behavior, often operating below our awareness, quietly dictates much of the culture and traditions of every region.
As I was surrounded by everyday rituals I had grown up with, something struck me when I saw kolanut alongside bitter kola. They are seeds but unlike palm fruit or corn, kolanut and bitter kola do not pack calories. They therefore sit outside the noisy debates around saturated fats from palm oil and the starchy foods from corn now detested by the low carb and keto crowd. I should add here that I grew up around kolanut. My mother was a petty kolanut trader who walked to several villages to buy kolanut. This, therefore, is not abstract to me.
So the question I asked myself was simple. What exactly are kolanut and bitter kola doing in our lives? Plants, it turns out, organize human interaction through a quiet but elegant triad of seeds. There are seeds that store fat, seeds that store carbohydrates, and a third category modern nutrition rarely names, signaling seeds. Uniquely, signaling seeds do not exist to feed us. They regulate appetite, attention, patience, and time. In Nigeria, kolanut and bitter kola are our signaling seeds, and they are deliberately removed from our traditional cuisines.
Interestingly, there is a unifying Nigerian saying that quietly captures the role of kolanut in our lives: Yorubas plant kolanut, Igbos talk about it, and Hausas eat it a lot. While this sounds like casual humor, it is in fact a powerful ecological observation and metabolic intelligence compressed into culture. In the forest zones of Yorubaland, kolanut trees thrive slowly, taking years to mature. Planting kolanut is therefore an act of stewardship and an investment in future social life rather than immediate calories. Kolanut is planted to sustain institutions such as meetings, rites, negotiations, and continuity across generations.
Among the Igbos, kolanut reaches its highest social expression. It is presented during ceremonies, marriage rites, dispute resolution, and elder councils, not as food but as a stabilizing presence during long dialogue. Kolanut extends time without feeding, sharpens speech without agitation, and slows the metabolic tempo of the room. In this context, it functions as a governance object that allows conversation, patience, and consensus to unfold without the disruptions of hunger or the heavy, tired feeling that follows a meal. Its significance is further reinforced by a popular Igbo saying: “he who brings kola brings life”.
In northern Nigeria, the Hausas relationship with kolanut reveals its physiological brilliance. In hotter, drier regions shaped by long distance travel, trade routes, and intermittent food access, kolanut is chewed deliberately during journeys and long workdays. This is not indulgence but pharmacological necessity. Kolanut suppresses appetite, supports vigilance, and enables endurance without the metabolic burden of eating. Here, the seed becomes a survival tool in motion, maintaining alertness and restraint when feeding would be impractical or destabilizing.
Seen this way, kolanut and bitter kola reveal the forgotten role of signaling seeds. They carry little fat and modest digestible energy, but they are rich in bitter compounds and alkaloids that negotiate directly with the brain. Their purpose is not nourishment but governance. They are eaten in small quantities, unprocessed, unsweetened, and without ceremony around fullness or cravings. Simply put, they are food extenders that help people wait.
In global terms, Nigeria is not an exception but a living example of a broader human pattern. In Ethiopia, coffee has traditionally been prepared simply sun dried, lightly roasted, and brewed black, then consumed slowly during conversation. In pre-colonial Mesoamerica, cacao was fermented, roasted, stone ground, and drunk as a thin, bitter beverage without sugar or milk. It was reserved for ceremonies and moments requiring focus and endurance. Across cultures, these signaling seeds were taken bitter and slow, functioning as tools for focus and waiting rather than feeding. Modern Western culture diluted these signals by mixing coffee and cacao with sugar, cream, and calorie laden condiments, quietly turning aids to restraint into habits of constant eating.
Perhaps this is what my short stay in Nigeria quietly reminded me of. Long before nutrition became a battlefield of macros and labels, everyday life already understood restraint, patience, and timing. Kolanut and bitter kola were never meant to fill us. They were meant to steady us. In a world that now eats constantly and waits very little, listening again to these small, bitter seeds may teach us less about food and more about how to live.
Mukaila Kareem, a doctor of physiotherapy and physical therapy advocate, writes from the USA and can be reached via makkareem5@gmail.com
