Talk:Cashew/Archive 1

Archive 1

Burning the cashew apple is poisonous to some birds

Someone might want to add that the fumes coming from roasting or burning cashew apples can be poisonouse to some, if not all birds. As far as I know here in the Philippines, the fumes can kill chickens and pigeons. 121.97.214.144 (talk) 08:57, 20 April 2008 (UTC) I can second this as here in Trinidad roasting cashew nuts are associated with bird deaths, the same effect can be seen with burning camphor. In my reading this could be due to certain aflotoxins which are toxic to many animals including birds. If this happens to be true the industrial production of certain nuts and oils may be understated having a huge negative environmental impact, killing large populations of local animals.

Discovery in 1500s

The back of my cashew bag says that they were discovered in the 1500s. I have a sneaking suspicion that this means white people discovered them in the 1500s. Any nut buffs out there have an idea? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.237.83.160 (talk • contribs) 21:36, 8 April 2005 (UTC)

That's right. Brazil was discovered in 1500 by the Portuguese, the first white people to see and taste cashews. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 143.238.240.52 (talk • contribs) 06:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Efficiency

Man, that's crazy...it seems really...inefficient to eat cashews, whole trees for a handful of nuts? Then again, I don't know how many fruits grow... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.237.237.139 (talk • contribs) 04:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

On that note, how many cashews does a tree produce yearly? How old must it be and how densely are they planted? Ideally this article would have this info. Melchoir 18:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Anedoctal evidence (my house) says you cant have too many stuff close to him -- Imean, the grass around just died. It gives fruit in the summer, and if it was well-cared, gives fruit enough trough the summer to have stored juice till May. Kobayen 00:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it, Cashew trees produce seeds usually 7 years after planting. However, the vast majority of trees are wild, not farmed.

Somewhere we should probably include references to http://cashewindia.org/ (the main Indian cashew promotion council), www.vinacas.com.vn (the Vietnamese counterpart), and Sinducaju (the Brazilian counterpart), as well as the Association of Food Industries, the main governing body of American imports of cashew kernels.

Etymology

I came across this folk in my mother tongue that I would like to share. Cashewnut, was basically an "anglo" version of "casukku" "ettu" means that 8 per paise, which the british found out when they came to india. Any corrections, welcome. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.155.78.10 (talk • contribs) 05:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

The actual etymology of cashew is clear. It derives from the indigenous Tupi language of Brazil, the place of origin of the cashew itself. Tmangray (talk) 20:42, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Should this article really include the etymology of Anacardium (which is the entire genus)? And if so, then shouldn't it include etymology of the full scientific name Anacardium Occidentale? Where occidentale means western. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/occident — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.226.233.142 (talk) 04:30, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Also the Tupian roots and their translation is unclear. Wiktionary gives the roots; acajuba or aka'iu (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cashew). The latter is translated as "yellow head" according to this source: https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Cashew.html. Not "nut that produces itself" as the original source in this article says i.e. https://www.embrapa.br/embrapa/imprensa/artigos/2005/artigo.2005-12-29.6574944222. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.226.233.142 (talk) 04:46, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Raw cashews poisonous

I have heard that the 'Raw Cashew' would be poisonous if eaten. Any truth to this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.14.130.130 (talk • contribs) 19:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Cashew Fan, Raw cashews are poisonous because there is a caustic oil in the lining of the cashew nut shell. There are different ways to process a cashew nut but the most common ways involve steaming or roasting the nut to evaporate the oil. This website will offer more information on cashew processing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iboucisse (talk • contribs) 03:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Can we get a more reliable/scientific source on this than thejoyofbaking.com (reference#7), or remove that part alltogether? There's no indication where they're getting their data from. Aside from that, the health benefits of nut consumption are pretty well documented, and I just don't want people to get the wrong idea (that they need to be roasted/deep-fried in order to be healthy). Are they referring to cashew oil, or cashew shell oil? Is there a difference between raw/uncooked and unprocessed? Bitshifter700 (talk) 19:58, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Cashew apples

Has anyone ever eaten a cashew fruit? By that I mean the "apple" which is not actually a fruit at all. I just must wonder how anyone could enjoy it. It is rather juicy but the taste is not appealing and it seems to instantly dry your mouth out. Yet it is nearly a delicacy in some places. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.154.42.31 (talk • contribs) 15:26, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Some more info on Cashew apples. In Goa and coastal regions of India, the cashew apples that are naturally dropped to the ground are hand picked and the cashew kernels removed. The apples are crushed by stampping on them and the watery juice is collected. The juice is allowed to ferment and then distilled repeatedly to get the alcoholic drink which is about 75% alcohol. Cashw fans do love this drink while those who drink it for the first time are avert to it easily. BTW: cashew apples eaten fresh are quite tasty. One has to discard 1/4 of that portion of the apple by which it hangs to the tree. A few people do show strong allergy to the juice of the apples. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.65.86.153 (talk • contribs) 17:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you referring to Fenny? Melchoir 18:09, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

In Brazil, the cashew apples are used to make a delicious dessert, called "doce de caju". It is also eaten raw with sugar and cachaça (a brandy made of sugar-cane). In the city of Natal, home of the biggest cashew tree in the world (1 acre of diameter), artisans make cashew apples grow inside glass bottles that are later filled with cachaça, so when the fruits are ripe and big, the tourist who buys the stuff wonders how it got there in the first place. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 143.238.254.105 (talk • contribs) 06:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that's some interesting stuff! If you have a reference, we should put it in the article. Melchoir 14:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

One ACRE in diameter? That would make it the widest TREE in the world, and hardly credible as a claim. Anyone know the actual diameter? Tmangray (talk) 20:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Hehe... one clarification here... the single tree do cover an area of one acre, yeah, that is true, but it is not a tree with a one acre in the trunk but the tree branches touched the soil and from there it start to grow similar to a new tree, except that it is the same plant. So yeah... technicaly this is the biggest tree in the world in area but the height and diamoeter of the trunk is as small as any other Caju tree. I got a reference here but i am sure there are better ones if you search the net. http://www.natal-brazil.com/entertainment/cashew-tree.html 201.52.54.4 (talk) 02:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a pine tree in Tasmania that is over one acre is size. It also grew from branches that touched the ground. I saw a documentary of it on TV. It is believed to be the biggest tree in the world. having said that the cashew tree mentioned is still a very big tree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrightNobleWoman (talk • contribs) 02:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Page

Thsi page isn't showing up right on my browser (Firefox) —The-thing (Talk) (Stuff I did) 19:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Picture overlaping with names for Cashew nuts

The picture Koeh-010 is overlapping with some text, is there anyway to stop this? 82.133.110.99 17:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. :) ~Lesa

Whole vs halves

Does anyone know why cashews are often sold either as wholes, or in halves/pieces? Is this separation a naturally occurring phenomena or a result of mechanical processing? Ham Pastrami 11:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Like most commercially available nuts, whole cashews are often sold for stand-alone snacking, while cashew pieces would be in the baking aisle of major supermarkets for candy-making and garnishing of prepared foods. The cashew naturally has two halves that can be easily split, but the process of breaking up nuts into pieces suitable for baking is likely done by mechanical means. 76.99.169.18 (talk) 20:27, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Drawing seems upside down

In its natural state, the fruit dangles down, with the nut being bottommost, as in the photograph at right. The drawing at left seems upside down. GreatAlfredini 03:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

nutritional info?

most of the other nuts & fruits have nutritional info - would be helpful here as well. --Lquilter 01:21, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Scale Photo

Are there any available photographs of the unpicked cashew next to, say, a human hand for scale? It is difficult to get a sense of proportion with the first photograph on the article. Danzigland 08:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

ITS A NUT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.182.49 (talk) 21:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Vernacular: Other Uses

In some parts of the U.S. the term "cashew" is used to refer to someone who is half-Catholic/half-Jewish. I don't know if this is ubiquitious enough to warrant inclusion in this article or elsewhere in wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lmeister (talk • contribs) 17:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Possible incorrect useage: "dermatogenic"

I didn't want to correct this, because I am not sure, but where it refers to the resin, urushiol as "dermatogenic" should that not be "pathodermic" or "dermatopathic"? If I remember my Latin and Greek correctly, "derma" (Latin/Greek) refers to the skin, "genic" (Greek) refers to causing something to begin and "patho" (Greek)refers to causing disease or suffering. Presumably this irritant/toxin does not cause skin to GROW. But it does cause the skin to suffer. Therefore it is shoudl surely be either "pathodermic" or "dermapathic". I am not sure which form is correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.169.180.52 (talk) 13:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Beverages

The 'culinary' section should mention the beverages that can be done with the cashew apple, such as:

• Juice
• Wine is made from the cashew fruit in my country, Belize. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.127.253.14 (talk) 21:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
• Aguas frescas
• Cajuína
• A soft drink flavor

(The latter two are popular in the Brazilian northeast region, especially in the states of Ceará and Piauí.) -- Stormwatch (talk) 00:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

how is it that we only ever see cashew nuts shelled. We never see them in their shells.(thats in the UK). 86.13.126.216 (talk) 10:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Fats

The nutrition information on this page is currently split between a table and a section called "nutrition". The table template is quite difficult to understand. Does anyone know how to include the fat breakdown within that table, indented under the total fat content? Nadiatalent (talk) 13:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Sodium

It is not mentioned in this article that the cashew contains sodium as one of its ingredients. Source: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Dictionary/C/Cashew-4996.aspx --Ivostefanov (talk) 23:24, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I've added sodium and manganese, the remaining minerals that are handled by the Nutritional values template. Nadiatalent (talk) 11:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Culinary

The sentence "In Natal you can find the largest cashew tree in the world which covers an area of about 7500 m2." doesn't belong in this Culinary section —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.91.45.231 (talk) 20:48, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Moved to the growth section. Nadiatalent (talk) 12:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Cultivating data

It would be of use to have data like "yield per tree", "yield per area (acre/hectare)", "start of production (age of tree)", "production life expectancy", etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.91.45.231 (talk) 16:24, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Production levels

'Nigeria was the world's largest producer of cashew nuts with shell in 2010.' But then: 'Peru reported the world's highest production yields for cashew nuts in 2010, at 5.27 metric tons per hectare, nearly nine times the world average.'

Can you resolve this apparent contradiction? Valetude (talk) 12:12, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

minor grammatical changes

The first sentence of this article made me cringe: "The cashew tree is the source of the so-called cashew nut (actually a seed), and the cashew apple, a fruit that is too fragile to transport, but whose pulp is processed into a sweet, astringent fruit drink, or distilled into liqueur." This is a fragment. If you simplify the sentence into "A is B and C" (where the letters are nouns), you can see that adding a comma ("A is B, and C") actually makes the sentence a fragment because the part after the comma is supposed to be an independent clause (i.e., "A is B, and C is D"). Even though it may "sound right" to you with the comma, it made me have to read over the sentence several times to understand what you are talking about. So I removed that comma. Extraneous commas in general just add confusion. I also amended a little bit of the rest of the sentence to make it clearer. --74.89.110.34 (talk) 05:13, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Not only unsigned, but anonymous. Didn't know it was on the menu. Valetude (talk) 12:46, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I revived the signature. DMacks (talk) 18:38, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Nuts and seeds aren't mutually exclusive, though. Take a look at the nut wiki to see what I mean: "A nut is a fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed, which is generally edible." Bitshifter700 (talk) 20:08, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Cashew Oil

Surely "poor point dispersants," should read "pour point dispersants," unless I am much mistaken. Dawright12 (talk) 16:33, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Information sources

In follow up to a Help Desk request, here is some sourced information that can be summarized into the article (if not already there):

• "Since taken to Goa by the Portuguese, cashews have been much used in the cooking of Southern India." April 29, 1995 The Age[1]

• "Cashew was originally introduced to Sri Lanka from Brazil by the Portuguese in the 16th Century."[2]

• "because the cashew's hard shell is toxic. Regulations require that all cashews be shelled."[3]
• "Vietnamese production was estimated at three lakh tonne (lt) against India's 5.73 lt in 2006. The major producers in Africa are Nigeria (2.16 lt), Tanzania (1lt), Ivory Coast (90,000 tonne), Guinea Bissau (81,000 tonne), Mozambique (58,000 tonne), Benin (40,000 tonne) and Kenya (10,000 tonne"[4]

-- Jreferee (talk) 18:55, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Taste

Referring to the article's mention of the flavor of the cashew apple, and also to the talk section "Cashew Apples", I would appreciate it if someone can find references and revise the information. I have a cashew tree growing in my yard which is several years old and it produces "fruit" that turns from green to dark red, at which point it is ready to eat. While it is true that the flavor is sweet, it is also astringent (like raw persimmon) and - The lighter the color - the more astringent it is. Eaten raw, it is an acquired taste because it kind of "curls your tongue", as we say in English. Next season, I will try juicing it. If I remember, I'll make a note here about the results. I hope this information will assist in improving this small part of the article. ReveurGAM (talk) 08:13, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Mixed Use of Nut and Seed throughout article

The Cashew is not a nut it is a seed, and the terms are used inter-changeably throughout the article. 'Cashew seed' should but used instead and the image caption should be revised to indicate cashew seed. The cashew apple is a drupe with an endocarp surrounding the seed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4888:A603:1905:C0:FFD:0:9152 (talk) 13:55, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

correction needed for production section

The text says that in 2013, Cote d'Ivoire was the leading producer of cashews in Africa. The accompanying table shows that in 2013 Nigeria produced about twice as many metric tons. Either I'm missing something, Nigeria has changed continents, or a correction is needed. Thanks. Dralan707 (talk) 19:20, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I looked at the Reuters article again and see the statement should read "exporter" not largest producer in Africa. The Reuters article is dated October 2014, and the FAOSTAT data (from pick-list: Production/Crops-World-2013-Average), usually the gold standard for crop production, are dated 2013 with no update for 2014 available yet. I revised the article to emphasize that Cote d'Ivoire seems to be exporting proportionately more than Nigeria does. --Zefr (talk) 19:36, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Is the cashew apple a fruit or pseudofruit?

https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/cashew_apple.html describes it as a pseudofruit--a swollen fibrous area of the stem connecting the seed to the branch--rather than a true fruit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.89.85.15 (talk) 15:59, 27 January 2016 (UTC)