In the Amazon city of Iquitos, Peru, people eat camu camu (Myrciaria dubia) with salt when it is still green. When the fruit matures, its sweet and sour yellow pulp is used to prepare juices and local desserts. When it’s in season, it is consumed everywhere for cheap. “People who eat it never […]
Read More… from What happened to camu camu? The rise, fall (and recovery) of an Amazon “super food”
In our last blog, Lourdes Páez explained the history of cocoa in Ecuador, and the challenges and opportunities in its production today. Here, we introduce you to some native Amazonian cocoa producers, and to the hope that proper cocoa production holds for them, as well as for the futures of chocolate and conservation. […]
Read More… from Cocoa: From Native producers in its Native Land
This Article was originally published on news.mongabay.com. Sofía Rubio was eight years old when she decided she wanted to be a biologist. “I would skip school to go to the woods with my father or mother,” who did research in what is now the Tambopata National Reserve in the southeastern Peruvian Amazon, she says. Today, dressed in a white lab coat, her ponytail caught up under a green hair net, Rubio hovers over a table, weighing Brazil nuts. But she’s not cloning them […]
Read More… from Innovating Brazil nuts: a business with roots in the rainforest
I was in the Amazon rainforest of Peru to see how Brazil nuts make the long journey from forest to nut mix. I wasn’t expecting a gourmet treat, but they tend to show up in unexpected places. Harvesting Brazil nuts is hard manual work, in remote areas, deep in the jungle. Harvesters spend long weeks in the forest gathering the cannonball-like fruit from the forest floor, shelling them on site and then hauling them in heavy loads miles through the forest. The harvest is intimately […]
Read More… from Feast in the Forest: Shiwi and its Brazil Nuts
Ojoche, Ojite, Ojushte, Ujushte, Capomo, Manchinga, Pisba waihka, Huje, Mojo, Ax, Ramon Nut, Breadnut… a partial list of many names for the same seed. Where I live, Ecuador, it’s called Sande but I had no idea it existed until I heard about the Maya Nut Institute a couple of months ago. Since 2001 Maya Nut Institute has improved livelihoods by empowering women and supporting nutritional health through this amazing seed, which they named “Maya Nut.” Maya Nut Institute […]
Read More… from Rescuing Ancient Superfoods – Changing lives in the process
