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What Are Food Forests

  • Food

The PermaTree FoodForest(s) have been growing physically and also digitally, on the website. As you can imagine most plants need more than just 3 years to grow strong and even more to produce fruit. Even in the tropical climate we have at the farm. Currently producing from the list above are Bananas, Guayusa, Coffee and all the others including Bamboo, are still in the growing phase.

So we have been using the time to educate ourselves more on all the health benefits of the plants we are growing. Happy to share now and here with you, some of our learnings and findings.

The Food Forest is “Garden Eden”!

“Forest gardening” is a prehistoric method of securing food in tropical areas. These gardens exemplify polyculture, and conserve much crop genetic diversity and heirloom plants that are not found in monocultures. Forest gardens have been loosely compared to the religious concept of the Garden of Eden.

PermaTree Food Forest Status December 2018

We have the main overview Food Forest page which links to every element of the forest. So far (December 2018) we have been able to publish about the following healthy crops:

  1. Did you know that the Avocado tree carries monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid?
  2. Are you aware that the Banana act as a prebiotic, stimulating the growth of friendly bacteria and  produces digestive enzymes to assist in absorbing nutrients?
  3. Did you know that the Coconut supplies an impressive 61% dietary fiber and contain two types of carbohydrates?
  4. Did you know that according to one legend the Coffee plant was discovered during the 9th-century by a Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi, when he noticed how excited his goats became after eating the beans from a coffee plant
  5. Imagine a energizing healthy indigenous beverage you have never heard of yet … which will give you energy and keep you awake but in a gentle way without making you nervous. Extremely healthy. Stimulates  the immune system. No yellow teeth, no bad breath. Sounds like something made up right? Guess what we discovered this amazonian beverage in our farm and its called: Guayusa It contains LOTS of Antioxidants, stimulant: Theobromine (found in cacao), amino acid: L-theanine (found in green tea) aaand Caffeine (found in coffee).
  6. Have you hear of a fruit which looks like snake eggs and tastes like apple with lemon but really tasty? In some places they call it the ‘memory fruit’ because of the high amount of potassium and pectin. But because of the odd looks, its better know as Snakefruit (salak)
  7. Did you know there is a tropical fruit where practitioners of herbal medicine in Asian, African and South American countries have used the bark, leaves, root, and fruits of the soursop tree to treat infections with viruses or parasites, arthritis, depression, stomach ailments, fever, parasitic infections, hypertension and rheumatism. It’s used as a sedative, as well. But claims of the fruit’s anti-cancer properties have attracted the most attention. It tastes like strawberry and pineapple with an underlying creamy flavor of coconut or banana. Nothing less complex. This fruit is called Soursop (Annona muricata)
  8. And last but not least some information about the fastest growing plant in the world which does NOT  require irrigation, fertilizer or pesticides: Bamboo – it’s not only used for constructions as you may know but it is TRUE multipurpose crop, with over 1500 documented uses (!) One of them is that the bamboo shoots can be cocked and eaten (contains phytochemicals, which have antibacterial and antiviral effects in the body. They are a good source of dietary fibre. Bamboo shoots contain potassium, important for a healthy heart and to maintain normal blood pressure). The leafs can be used to drink tea or beer (Bambusa). The bamboo shoots MUST be cooked because most bamboo species contain cyanide compounds of varying levels, with species cultivated for food containing the least amount. 

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