Edible agave?

[bogfrog]

I was just rearranging some of my plants and remembered this agave,

It needed a bit of a trim to fit it the spot where I was going to put it, so I sliced off a leaf.

It looked kind of nice, like the inside of a white sapote, so i smelled it, no smell..

So I sliced off the thick skin..

..Needless to say I got curious and cut off a little of the flesh to taste it.. Not bad! Not bad at all!

Not really much flavour, almost a bit like a cucumber or a very mild-tasting melon, but juicy and refreshing.

Now I know its probably bad form to go chewing on random plants before researching, but I figured if I can have agave syrup on my pancakes, I can probably eat a bit of the stem.

So I looked it up on wikipedia, and it turns out (some?) agave are edible:

"There are four major parts of the agave that are edible: the flowers, the leaves, the stalks or basal rosettes, and the sap (in Spanish: aguamiel, meaning "honey water").[8]"

Yeah! Honey water is a perfect description of the taste!

The plant which I ate was given to me as a small rosette off an absolutely giant agave, the thing was honestly 3-4 metres wide and 2-3 metres tall.

If this is a palatable, food producing plant, shouldn't we all be growing them!!?

"But the miracle of nature was the great Mexican aloe, or maguey, whose clustering pyramids of flowers, towering above their dark coronals of leaves, were seen sprinkled over many a broad acre of the table-land. As we have already noticed its bruised leaves afforded a paste from which paper was manufactured, its juice was fermented into an intoxicating beverage, pulque, of which the natives, to this day, are extremely fond; its leaves further supplied an impenetrable thatch for the more humble dwellings; thread, of which coarse stuffs were made, and strong cords, were drawn from its tough and twisted fibers; pins and needles were made from the thorns at the extremity of its leaves; and the root, when properly cooked, was converted into a palatable and nutritious food. The agave, in short, was meat, drink, clothing, and writing materials for the Aztec! Surely, never did Nature enclose in so compact a form so many of the elements of human comfort and civilization!"

I have developed alot more respect for agaves in the last half and hour!

Has anyone else eaten agave, or heard of it being eaten?

[waterboy 2.0]

Apparently Agave deserti and A.americana has a lot of edible uses , seeds ground to flour, flowers parboiled, leaves baked or dried and stored, cooked up and made into a "cake" for storage by Californian region indians.

Theres a few others that yielded roots and young shoots for eating in records from Mexico, Venezuala, Guatamala, and southern US.

Havent eaten them, not sure if I want to....lol....making alcoholic bevvies isn't out of the question

Edited August 24, 2013 by waterboy

[bogfrog]

Awesome!

I think the peeled leaves would work really well in a fruit salad.

Whatever type I tried did leave a weird kind of tangyness on my tongue though, kinda acidic, so maybe I shouldn't eat heaps of it at once

..now, where can I find some more agaves ...

[Weirdo]

The stems of some species of Agave were tapped when the plants were producing flower stalks to collect the aguamiel or honeywater which was fermented to produce alcoholic beverages i.e. pulque or fermented into various spirits such as tequila and mescal. Not all are edible though, as some contain saponins which are used to stun, stupefy and kill fish.

[IndianDreaming]

I think eating Agave is fine, because you're not concentrating and transforming the nectar into fructose. I was getting right into Agave nectar as a source of healthy sugars, but after a bit of research it turns out that it's much worse for you than high fructose corn syrup! High fructose corn syrup is the devil that IMHO is a massive factor in obesity, in every damn soft drink on the planet. This article says it better than I ever could: http://www.foodrenegade.com/agave-nectar-good-or-bad/

Seems like eating the Agave plant is fine though because you'd be eating Levulose not Fructose...

Edit: Fructose quote: 'That’s because fructose inhibits leptin levels — the hormone your body uses to tell you that you’re full. In other words, fructose makes you want to eat more. Besides contributing to weight gain, it also makes you gain the most dangerous kind of fat'

Edited September 10, 2013 by IndianDreaming

[Rum and Monkeys]

Thanks for sharing Ceres and IndianDreaming, a lot of nice information here

[Rum and Monkeys]

Do you know what type of Agave this is Ceres?

[bogfrog]

Ha.. Ummm no. I dont know what kind it is sorry R&M. I will try find out though, the mother plant is at a mate's place, his dad might know.

Eating random things without researching first is one of my worst habits and could be the death of me one day. Reading Weirdo's comment about some agave sp. being used to stun, stupefy and kill fish was enough to make me realise i should have been more cautious

[whoami]

one of my workmates had a bad habit of eating random fruits. ate some thing and his mouth went numb for a week, reckons he couldn't taste anything and couldn't feel his lips. hahahaha I think it might have been dieffenbachia or something