Shas­tri Boodan

T&T and the world has been gift­ed with a num­ber of plants from the African con­ti­nent.

De­spite their use­ful­ness, many are are still to be used for their full eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial.

One of these plants is the baobab tree, which looks like an up­side-down plant with its roots in the air. The baobab made the trip from Africa to the West In­dies dur­ing the height of the slave trade be­tween the 16th and 19th cen­turies and most spec­i­mens to­day can on­ly be found in Botan­i­cal Gar­dens in Port-of-Spain.

How­ev­er, there are rare ex­cep­tions when a spec­i­men is found in the wild.

In the case of To­ba­go, a baobab grows ma­jes­ti­cal­ly on a lot of land op­po­site the Es­planade in Scar­bor­ough, where it is now in the fruit­ing stage. The beau­ty of this tree is masked by the shacks and build­ings that sur­round it. Yet it re­mains sym­bol­ic of the jour­ney the African peo­ple made to the new world.

To­bag­o­ni­ans and fel­low small is­lands re­fer to the baobab as Guinea Tamarind, which is a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent fruit. The dried baobab has a cit­rus taste and may be con­fused with tamarind. The species re­quires very lit­tle wa­ter and stores most of the wa­ter col­lect­ed dur­ing the rainy sea­son in its mas­sive trunks.

Agri­cul­tur­al econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj shared some in­sights in­to the baobab.

He said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go, for many rea­sons, pos­sess­es the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment which pro­vides a home and habi­tat to a vast ar­ray of flo­ra and fau­na. Many of these have a rich and sto­ried his­to­ry of where they may have orig­i­nat­ed, how and why it was brought here, but per­haps mod­ern life has ill-af­ford­ed us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­plore their po­ten­tial and con­ser­va­tion.”

COVID-19 has brought an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­turn to the land in many forms. An im­por­tant part of the na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion at the mo­ment is ‘sur­vival gar­den­ing’.

In ad­di­tion to farm­ing sec­tor ca­pac­i­ty, house­holds are re­shap­ing the con­ver­sa­tion on veg­etable and herb gar­den­ing, or­na­men­tal flow­ers and oth­er fruit and food trees. Re­search tells us that the Baobab grows in Africa, Aus­tralia and the Mid­dle East. De­scribed as the “Tree of Life”, every part of it has tra­di­tion­al­ly been used as food, med­i­cine, or as the ba­sis of cloth­ing or house­hold items. “While the cloth­ing and tex­tile con­sid­er­a­tion may not be high on T&T’s agen­da at this time, it’s di­etary im­por­tance must be not­ed,” Ma­haraj said.

He said Baobab fruit is ed­i­ble but more pop­u­lar­ly, the dried seed pow­der is used in foods be­cause of its nu­tri­ents, pos­si­ble health ben­e­fits and as a nat­ur­al preser­v­a­tive. It is a good source of vi­t­a­min C, potas­si­um, car­bo­hy­drates and phos­pho­rus. It is al­so be­lieved to have an­timi­cro­bial, an­tivi­ral an­ti-ox­i­dant and an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry prop­er­ties. The fruit is found in­side hard pods that hang up­side down from the tree and car­ries a “cit­rus” flavour.

Baobab is al­so “wild-har­vest­ed” - tak­en from its nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment and dried nat­u­ral­ly. “Baobab pow­der and oth­er prod­ucts can be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to smooth­ies and sal­ads. Im­por­tant­ly, be­cause of its nov­el­ty in our en­vi­ron­ment and di­et, there should be more re­search and em­pir­i­cal ev­i­dence to con­firm its health ben­e­fits and botan­i­cal im­por­tance,” Ma­haraj added.

Apart from its ed­i­ble qual­i­ties, Baobab is al­so med­i­c­i­nal in na­ture. It has tra­di­tion­al­ly been used in African pop­u­la­tions to re­lieve di­ar­rhoea, con­sti­pa­tion and dysen­tery. The leaves and fruit pulp have al­so been used to re­duce fever and stim­u­late the im­mune sys­tem. The health ben­e­fits in­clude: im­prov­ing di­ges­tive health, sup­port­ing the im­mune sys­tem, gen­er­al hy­dra­tion and skin health.