Moringa, quite possibly the most powerful superfood in the world.
I personally came to know of the plant Moringa Oleifera from a friend of mine in Jamaica. He had been growing the tree's there for years and would always tell me how he used them as a part of his daily health regimen. My friend spent his life as a farmer in the hills of Jamaica, he is very keen to many different herbs and plants. He would tell me about how you could use the seeds, leaves, bark and roots to make many different products and medicines. I honestly never really paid too much attention to what he was saying, he just told me it was a tree I should look into. He told me we must go see his friend in the Valley. (San Fernando Valley, as this story comes from the city of Los Angeles.) After about a year of hanging out and playing music together around LA, I finally went to the Valley to see his friend and get some Moringa. His buddy had been working with Moringa for about a decade now and was very knowledgable about the plant. I came to learn that this tree is jam packed with nutrients. The stats were actually quite incredible. Gram per gram it contains 17 times the calcium in milk, .5 times the vitamin C in an orange, 10 times the vitamin A in carrots, 15 times the potassium in a banana, 25 times the iron in spinach, and 9 times the protein of yogurt. This is all coming from the leaf of a tree. An actual plant source that is extremely high in calcium and protein, since I have been and practicing vegan through various phases of my life, this really sounded great to me. Being a natural skeptic, I thought the data was cool, but I certainly wasn't convinced. I went home and started doing some research online, only to find that the Discovery Channel had produced a documentary on this plant. After watching this documentary I became aware that Moringa was being used in some of the poorest areas of the world to treat malnutrition. Babies were being born healthier when mothers incorporated it into their diet. In fact mothers that weren't able to produce breast milk were able to after incorporating it into their diets. Women were having babies that weighed 1-2 pounds more than their previous children did. I also learned that this magic plants seed husks are ground up and added to water to purify it to make it drinkable. That was pretty much the icing on the cake for me. Ever since I have incorporated the dry leaf product into my diet, have attempted to even grow a few trees, and have told just about everyone I know about it.
Moringa Trees
Let em' grow!
A few young trees waiting to grow up! Grow some trees yourself! 1st find a sunny place. Then make square holes in the ground 30 to 60 cm deep. Fill the hole with loose soil. Plant the seed 1 cm deep. Give the soil some water but make sure to not give it too much, the seed might rot. Within 1-2 weeks you've got yourself a little sapling!
Moringa Leaf Powder
Here is what the dried leaf powder looks like. This is probably the most common way Moringa is being distributed around the world. The dried leaves are ground and then screened to obtain a pure clean powder.
Moringa Seeds
Moringa Seeds are great to eat! The have a very distinct flavor that can be slightly bitter. The most interesting thing I've discovered about them is that when you drink water while chewing on the seeds they become extremely sweet! It seriously goes from being bitter to tasting like natural kool aid when you drink water with it. I'm not exactly sure why this happens but it's pretty cool!
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