Cashew Nut

The cashew belongs to genus Anacardium occidentale, it is a flowering plant belongs family Anacardiaceae. Cashew is native to northeastern Brazil, also knows as by its Portuguese name “Caju” as a fruit and Cajueiro as a tree. This plant widely grows in tropical climates for its cashew "nuts"

Chasew nuts information shows that chasew is small and evergreen tree whose length is 10-12 meter, having short, oftenly irregularly-shaped trunk. The leaves of chasew tree are spirally arranged, has leather texture, elliptic to obovate, their leaves are 4 to 22 cm long and 2 to 15 cm broad, having smooth margin. The true chasew nuts are kidney shaped that grows at the end of the pseudofruit. The true fruit of cashew is a single seed, the nut; in the botanical sense the fruit of the cashew is a seed. This seed is coated by a double shellthat contains a caustic phenolic resin, cardiol, which is potent skin irritant toxin, that allergy chasew nut and indirectly to beings eating them. But still cashew nuts are less frequent allergen than some nuts.

Cashew nuts were originated from Brazil and them taken by the Portuguese to their country. They need warm and humid area for their growth. According to todays information Cashew is cultivated in 32 countries of the world. The world production of cashew crop is around 2.7 million tons per annum, published by FAO. The major cashew producing countries in 2005 according to UN's Food and Agriculture Organization are:
Vietnam (960,800 tons)
Nigeria (594,000 tons)
India (460,000 tons) Brazil (147,629 tons) and
Indonesia (122,000 tons).

The total area of the World under the growing cashew nuts are around 35,100 km² in which India ranks first in area utilized for its cashew cultivation, but indians yields are relatively low. The world’s average yield of area for cashew cultivation is 700 pounds per acre (780 kg/hectare). Next to india is Vietnam and Brazil and including india the three countries account more then 90% of cashew export. Southern India alone produces 4000 tones of cashew per annum.

Uses Of Cashew Nuts:

1. Cashew nut roast is used round the world, best paired with tea or coffee and
Oftenly used as dry fruit. Mature cashew is used for roasting but raw cashew isnt used for rasting due to its allergic components.
2. Cashew nut cookies are widely in process due to their huge consumption by all ages. Cashew nut butter cookies are oftenly taken during tea time. Cashew is main ingredient for cookies and candy industries. Most of the chocolate and cookies contain cashew as the core component while coat with crunchy cookies or dark chocolate
3. Cashew nuts are common in asian dishes where it is not only used in sweet dishes but also indifferent salty dishes. They hold a large amount of oil and butter and therefore it adds extra oil in it
4. The cashew pulp when it is not ripen hold some acidic juice and used in jam, marmalades and in different beverages. These can be used in carbonated water or in simple juices. The raw cashew nut has many uses and used in different parts.
5. Cashew nut nutrition is very high as it holds 180 calories in one ounce and hold 70% of fats.
6. The nut shell of the cashew is very important and is used in distillation of petroleum. It is very useful as it holds much oil in its shell. The raw cashew nuts hold less oil then the ripen cashew nut but raw cashew hold more acid in it.