ORIGIN:
The scientific name of the aguaje is Mauritia flexuosa L. It is an edible fruit of the Palmera, originating of Peru. It is found in the Loreto, San Martín, Ucayali and Huánuco basins. We can also find it in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
BACKGROUND:
Throughout many parts of the Amazon basin, fruit from the palm Mauritia flexuosa L.f. is harvested
for subsistence and commercial purposes. Known as aguaje in the Peruvian Amazon,
the commercial extraction of fruit from this dioecious palm provides an
important source of income for rural communities as well as urban families
living in and near the city of Iquitos.
Despite occupying a surface area of more than
five million hectares of mainly flooded forest in the Peruvian Amazon, this
symbolic plant is little known outside the boundaries of the Amazon region. There
will be some articles about distribution, biology, uses, and potential, as well
as its importance ecologically, economically, socially, and as a provider of environmental
services.
The fruit is consumed raw or processed into a variety of products (e.g.
beverages, ice cream, ice pops, etc.) and recent estimates suggest that
residents of Iquitos consume approximately 148.8 metric tons of aguaje fruit
per month.
 |
| Peruvian aguaje fruit |
BENEFITS:
- The aguaje fruit’s high
Vitamin A content makes it an unparalleled dietary source for children and
pregnant women since it helps form and maintain healthy teeth, soft
tissues and bones, mucous membranes, and skin. This vitamin promotes good
eyesight, especially in low light environments, and it is also necessary
during reproduction and breast feeding.
- Contains natural vegetable oils with excellent properties for the skin.
- A powerful depurative,
helps keep the blood and intestines free of toxins, gases and greasy waste
unnecessary.
- That aguaje is good to
help shape the body and increase the bust. This may be because
they contain phytohormones and that it is a depurative that helps to
remove harmful fats from the body.
CHARACTERISTICS:
- The
aguaje produces an average of eight blossoms per palm tree, and each blossom
produces approximately 725 fruits. Hence, the estimated average production is
290 kilograms per palm tree.
- The
aguaje’s natural habitat is formed by swamps and poor drainage areas, where
permanently or temporarily flooded soils predominate. In these habitats, called
aguajales, the indigenous populations distinguish two types of ecosystems: one
formed by a mixture of aguaje palms with ungurahui palms, as well as other
species called sacha aguajal, and another formed almost exclusively by aguaje
palms called aguajal.
- The
aguaje palm has a special type of aerial root called pneumataphores, which
allows the tree to breathe in flooded conditions.
- The
fruit classify three types of aguaje fruit, each recognized by its distinctive
color: “yellow or posheco”, when all of the mesocarp (fleshy middle layer) is
yellow colored; “color”, when the external part of the mesocarp is orange; and
“shambo”, when the entire mesocarp is orange. There is also a fourth category
called “blue shambo”, but it is nothing more than unripe aguaje fruit. Each
type of this fruit exhibit differences in their size and shape, as well as in texture
and flavor of the mesocarp.
- The
aguaje is a large storehouse of carbon, which is why its role in lessening the
world’s climatic change is of great importance. It stores more than 600 tons.
- No
other Peruvian Amazon Rainforest fruit is sold in so many different ways: ripe,
green, pulped, as aguajina (a local drink), as a popsicle, in ice cream, jelly
and yogurt. It is estimated that the monthly demand is about 1,500 tons, or
fifty tons per day.
Read more in The socio-cultural importance of Mauritia flexuosa palm swamps (aguajales) and implications for multi-use management in two Maijuna communities of the Peruvian Amazon
