Maya Nut Is The New Açai Berry

Get ready to put some hot Central American nuts in your mouth, because people, we have a new exotic food trend.

In the same vein as the Açai berry, which rocketed to fame as a favorite ingredient among celebs and health freaks, the Maya nut is being hailed as the new miracle “it” food. It also doesn’t hurt that it comes from the magical mystical rainforest in Central America and is supposedly chock full of vitamins and nutrition.

Communities in Central American countries are starting to recognize the benefits of the Maya nut as a cheap, plentiful and nutritious food source, and are encouraging people to harvest the nut as a staple food item in their diet. An added benefit of promoting nut harvesting is that the practice is essentially sustainable since the Maya nut tree does not need to be cut down, so the rainforest is left intact–unlike other foraging/farming practices in rainforest habitats.

The meat of the nut can be made into a bunch of different tasty things, from pancakes and cookies to soup, or just eaten plain.

So could this plentiful and cheap resource be the cure for cancer and signal the end of hunger and poverty!? Probably not, but they say it tastes like chocolate and/or mashed potatoes so fuck it, we’d probably eat it.

Also all the media attention will probably lead to the nut being overharvested and exploited for foreign consumption, which will take it away from the Central American consumers. So… we’d actually think twice before buying that Maya nut cookie.

Maya nut changes lives while aiding the rain forest [CNN]