BRAZIL NUTS

Western Commodities import both organic and conventional brazils. We can provide chopped brazils and mixed chopped nuts from our UK factory.

The Brazil nut is the large seed and fruit of the Para tree, a 40 meter plus evergreen tree native only to the Amazon basin that can live between 500 and 1,000 years.

Despite their name, the most significant exporter of Brazil nuts Bolivia where the nut is called Almendras. In Brazil these nuts are known as castanhas-do-Pará (literally "chestnuts from Pará").

In a true botanical sense the Brzil nut is a fruit, not a nut. The fruit itself is packed in a shell within a large capsule 10–15 centimetres diameter resembling a coconut in size and weighing up to 2 kilo’s. The hard, woody shell 8–12 millimetres thick, contains 8–24 triangular seeds 4–5 centimetres long (the "Brazil nuts") packed like the segments of an orange.

The nuts are gathered by migrant workers known as castanheiros. Each year a number of castanheiros die harvesting the nuts. The 2 kilo pod falling from over 40 metrrs is a dangerous object to gather.

Brazil nuts are rich in selenium, calcium, copper, zinc and vitamin E. Used in cooking but also great as a snack food, Brazil nuts are high in omegas 3, 6, and 9, an essential element in any healthy diet.

As well as its food use, Brazil nut oil is also used as a lubricant in clocks, for making artists' paints, and in the cosmetics industry.