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Wandering Herbalist: Costa Rica Fruits
I have a confession to make that usually puzzles my clients and students who know me to be a food “expert”: I don’t usually eat fruit. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s that, for some reason that I have never fully understood, my body just doesn’t seem to metabolize fructose very well. To put it bluntly; fruit makes me fat. But, it is impossible for a self professed food fiend to travel to a new country learning about plants and food and not eat what grows locally! So, I eat it all. And I’ve gained weight, but that’s beside the point! One thing that I really enjoy about…
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Clueless Attempts at Permaculture: 6 months and Drowning
Remember last time I wrote one of these and it seemed vaguely optimistic? Forget all that. We are currently in the depths of the rainy season. The good news about this is that, as it pours for hours every day, nothing needs additional watering. Here are the downsides: the soil just washes away and if you don’t catch it quickly and remedy the situation, it can leave delicate roots exposed. Heat-loving plants like tomatoes and peppers get moldy and rot, and weeds grow incredibly quickly. Now combine that with the fact that my free-ranging chickens have stripped the leaves off of everything they can reach and the leaf-cutter ants on…
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Wandering Herbalist: Mamon (Rambutan)
Medicinal plants, fruit: Mamon The fruit stacked high on the table at the market looks almost alien. Spiky, with little barbs radiating outward, bright red and about the size of a ping-pong ball; here in Costa Rica, this fruit is known as mammon, though in Asia it is better known as rambutan. Don’t be fooled by its’ strange appearance – it is delicious. And at this time of year when it is in season, it is ridiculously cheap and can be found everywhere. There was a lady selling bags on the side of the highway out of the back of her truck today; one kilo for one mil colones (just…
