Brazil Nut - A Better Choice

Brazil Nut

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This is the only species in this family and is native to a wide area of tropical rainforest in South America, including Brazil.
Nuts are borne on large trees that grow up to 45m in height.
Each large fruit, which looks like a coconut and weighs up to 2 kg, contains about 10 to 25 nuts.
Each nut comes in a hard grey/beige shell, which has a rough texture.
The nuts themselves are elongated, 4 to 5 cm long, slightly curved and have a dark honey-brown seed coat covering the cream coloured nut.
Nuts have a rich taste, and are high in saturated fat, even higher than macadamias.
They are a good source of selenium, magnesium and thiamine
nuts are still almost entirely harvested from the wild with most supplies coming from Bolivia and Brazil.
Over-harvesting has taken so many nuts that trees cannot reproduce, as a result the Brazil nut has been listed as ‘vulnerable’.

Botanical Name: Bertholetia exelca (Lecythidaceae)

Health Benefits

100g of Brazil Nuts yields the following:

Calories – 656
Total Carbs – 4% of DV
Protein – 14.32g
Dietary Fibre – 30% of DV
Vitamin C – 1% of DV
Calcium – 16% of DV
Iron – 14% of DV

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

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