HELEN JOFFEE, BSc Deg, Phytotherapy, Clinical Herbalist
What she had to say about OYYC
“Jodi’s heavenly bites are
just that, divine natural yumminess. Eating these melt in
your mouth delights you’ll never miss the chocolate!”
Carob pod or Ceratonia siliqua, is both a healthy food and
medicine. Native to southeastern Europe, western Asia and northern Africa,
it is a large evergreen tree growing up to 30 feet tall. The tree does not bear fruit for
sometimes 15 years, but thereafter bears plenty. One tree can harvest up to one
ton of fruit in a single picking!
Used
within ancient Egypt it was eaten as a delicacy, aphrodisiac and used to treat
ailments of the digestion. The
1st century Greek
physician Dioscorides wrote that ‘carob
acted to relive stomach pain and settle the digestion’.
Carob
pods are nutritious being high in sugars, fats, starch, proteins and
vitamins. The bean, seeds
and pods are edible. It is
the ground seeds that are used in place of cocoa. The pods are often used as
cattle feed and in times of famine people would supplement with carob
pods. Also known as St.
John’s bread or locust bean gum.
Today Carob is mainly used as a healthy alternative to chocolate
as it is both nourishing and sweet, having naturally occurring sugars it does
not require as much added sugar as chocolate does and does not have the
caffeine or theobromine that chocolate has, which can have harmful effects such
as causing anxiety, upsetting the digestion or being overly stimulating.
In
medicine, Carob pods have a naturally occurring substance called pinitol, which
belongs to a group of inositols or non-caloric sugars. This pinotil is
thought to help with diabetics or people with insulin resistance, as it reduces
insulin resistance by aiding the muscles ability to absorb glucose and increase
cellular metabolism.
One can in fact see that this is not only just a yummy food or tea; it’s nutritious & good for you!