Health benefits of Cactus

  Nopales cactus has been a part of the diet for the people of the Southwest and Mexico for many thousands of years. During that time, the venerable cactus has developed a reputation of being a healthy plant to eat…. nay, more than merely healthy… in Mexico cactus is actually regarded as a health food, a healing plant that can help people with their ailments.

   Unfortunately, such discoveries can also result in hyperbolic pronouncements as to efficacy.  It can be difficult to winnow the facts from the fantasy.  While there are studies being conducted… in many cases these have only been carried out the last few years. There is still a great deal of research that needs to be completed to rigorously document the surprising benefits of eating cactus.

   One of the largest suppliers of organic cactus in the Northern Hemisphere is Nopal Oro Verde of Mexico. They grow their organic cactus high in the mountains at a level of some seven thousand foot elevation.  They are actually an association of some 350 cactus growers in that area who have allied together for marketing and transportation consolidation.  I am happy to report that they have a good reputation of being committed to organic principles, and conservation of the soils on their mountains.

  Nopal Oro Verde (that means ‘green gold cactus’) also has one of the best pages on the health benefits of eating cactus.   When I e-mailed them to ask if I could link to their page, this is what they wrote me…

   “We have so much technical information on Nopal but of course we share the most sensitive data mainly with our clients. At the same time there is so much erroneous information on the internet web sites that we felt it important to occasionally update our web site to give the public a true understanding of Nopal’s health benefits from the latest scientific studies.

   For the benefit of the public we would welcome your desire to add the health benefit link to your web site should your readers want more detailed information. As you no doubt have realized, what we mention on there is backed up by serious studies and not exaggerated by any means. So yes, please link to it if you wish.”

    I like the fact that their details of the health benefits are not hyperbole, you can believe these are documented tests done under the rigorous scientific methods we like in the West.

  Now, these folks are ‘big-time’ cactus growers. They come from a place in Mexico where the same fields have been cultivated for millenia, where the world’s most knowledgeable cactus growers are raised in the cactus fields their own ancestors worked.  Now they are being helped by knowledgeable business people with marketing and distribution channels.. and they have agronomists with organic management expertise helping the growers maintain their fields organically.  It all seems a great marriage of tradition and modern business/environmental principles.

   Yeah, I’m all fired up to sell organic cactus to anyone who wants it… but we are more the small grower selling five and fifty pound boxes here and there…. while ’Nopal Oro Verde’  is the people you need to go to if you need a thousand pounds of cactus weekly for your chain of Mexican Food stores.  Nopal Oro Verde also is one of the leading suppliers of dehydrated and powdered nopal for the USA market.  They are good folks who will ‘do you right’.