Fresh Plaza: The Amazon rainforest is an amazing place; half of the world's plant and animal species are found here! South America has given the world the potato, the tomato, the cherimoya and other crops, and it is not done. Scientists are moving into the jungle, searching for new fruits that could make a splash on the global scene. While local indigenous people had a diet including thousands of jungle fruits, modern societies eat just a fraction of them, so there is plenty of room for growth. Here are five fruits that come from the jungle and could end up in supermarkets around the world.
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| 5. Mocambo |
Think of the Mocambo seed as a less-famous sibling; the Billy Baldwin, the Nicky Hilton or Jim Belushi of the fruit world. Because while the Mocambo is well-known in Iquitos and elsewhere in the Amazon, it shares its genus with the oh-so-famous Theobroma cacao L: chocolate. The mocambo grows principally in the western Amazon, which is its homeland, and has a sweet pulp. Most vendors stick to just selling the fruit's seeds, which reportedly taste like peanuts when roasted.
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| 4. Acai |
Acai is really a story of marketing, rather than a special fruit. The acai berry comes from the palm tree of the same name, which grows in large abundance in the Brazlian Amazon, but which can also be found in Peru. In the early 2000s, it was marketed as a miracle fruit, with incredible antioxidant properties. Health food companies sold the juice for upwards of $40 per bottle. Actual studies have found acai to have roughly the same proportion of antioxidants as grapes and blueberries, which (you might have noticed) sell for signficantly less than $40
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| .3. Aguaje |
The aguaje fruit, and powders and extracts derived from it, are big sellers on the internet. You might think that is because of its high Vitamin A content (five times greater than that of the carrot). You would be wrong. Aguaje has a reputation for giving the women of the Amazon region certain curves, and consumers outside the region seem to want similar figures. The fruit itself comes from the aguaje palm, a major component of the ecosystem in and around Amazonian wetlands, and tastes like a carrot.
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| 2. Arazá |
Arazá is hard to find outside the jungle, because no one has found a good way to ship it without spoiling the fruit. Arazá's acidity makes it undesirable for eating off the tree, but it is delicious when turned into a juice, jam or dessert. Even better, the arazá has more than twice as much Vitamin C as an orange.
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| 1. Camu camu |
The camu camu berry is like acai with actual nutritional value. Camu camu is being marketed around the world as the cure for everything from the common cold to arthritis. While such claims are probably overblown, the berry of the myciaria dubia tree does have the second-highest concentration of Vitamin C of any known fruit in the world. A small-scale study in Japan showed it reduced the risk of hardened arteries. It's a bit acidic on its own, which is why most foreigners buy it as a powder. In the Amazon, it is usually mixed with sugar and water to make a tasty juice. Source: peruthisweek.com Source: Fresh Plaza
