Brazil Nuts (not strictly boat related)

gandy

gandy

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Hi,

Does anyone know why Brazil nuts don't seem to be available any more? They were in short supply last year, and I've just heard that Tesco don't have them on sale, and that their "mixed"" nuts don't include any Brazils. What's happened? Political problems? Crop failures? Change in fashion?

(This is a serious question, by the way. I have more confidence in a sensible answer here than from Tescos.)

Tony S

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A quick search shows that prices are up several percent on last year, but are not in short supply

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni
 
Maybe just not as popular as they used to be. There hasnt been somebody saying they are carcinogenous or something like that!


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Could be an opportunity here, Tony.

If we travelled over, would you be happy in the hills gathering nuts whilst I did interviews on the beach?

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Be careful of the cannibals. There are two blokes in the jungle and they get caught by cannibals. They beg for their lives and eventually the chief says, go out in the jungle and gather forty food objects, all the same. Bring them back here and I will let you go. THe first chap comes back with forty Brazil nuts and the chief says, stick them up your arse without laughing and you shall be free. The guy gets up to 39 and bursts out laughing. Why did you laugh, says the cannibal chief. Because, says the man, I've just seen my mate walking down the hill with forty coconuts.
boom boom.

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i think it's an issue of legals. Damage to furniture, breaking of bones attemtping to open the poxy things and worst of all, I understand that they may contain traces of nuts.

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I think it is largely a pricing and environmental issue.. Brazil nuts are mostly picked from the wild rather than grown as a crop. Look here at a Guardian article:

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1110096,00.html>http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1110096,00.html</A>

Here is a quote from the article:

"The clear message is that current brazil nut harvesting practices at main Amazon forest sites are not sustainable in the long term," Carlos Peres of the University of East Anglia and colleagues write in Science today.

The Brazil nut is one of the marvels of evolution and a lesson in the interdependence of living things. The tree can live for more than 500 years, but its survival depends just on one species of female bee and a rodent the size of a rabbit with unusually strong, sharp teeth.

Pollination only occurs because the female long-tongued orchid bee is strong enough to force open the coiled hood of its huge yellow flower, and has a tongue long enough to get down to the pollen and nectar. The nuts form in a heavy pod with a shell so tough most creatures cannot open it, and these fall from the tree with sometimes lethal force.

Only the agouti, an agile vegetarian rodent with chisel-shaped teeth, can strip away the outer husk. Like squirrels, agoutis hide what they cannot eat, and then sometimes forget where they planted the nuts - allowing the seeds to become saplings.

Because of this bizarre cycle of pollination and growth, there are few Brazil nut plantations: most nuts are collected from the wilderness. "

I'll never take a Brazil nut for granted again (note the use of a capital 'B' in view of their newly recognised status as 'Jolly Good Things')

Floatything



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