Organic and Fair Trade Brazil Nuts 1kg

Organic Amazon nuts, small-producer supply chain

The organic Amazon nut in pieces is the same fruit as the Brazil nut, hand-picked in the heart of the Bolivian Amazon rainforest, then shelled by hand and cut into half-nuts. This nut-piece format is, in our opinion at Biovie, one of the most practical for everyday cooking. And the selenium it contains (4,600 µg/kg measured on our Natural Andes batches, i.e. 460 µg per 100 g, 836% of the NRV) contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress and to the normal function of the immune system, as part of a varied and balanced diet.

Amazon nuts come from the primary forests of South America. Formerly called "Brazil nuts", their production has fallen drastically in Brazil, a victim of deforestation since the 1970s. With Bolivia becoming the main producer (around 80 to 85% of world production today), they have been renamed "Amazon nuts".

Honestly, their taste - between almond and macadamia - lets them pair with sweet and savoury alike. The texture is crunchy and the half-nut format that Biovie offers you is the ideal size for snacking on easily, or for adding to your preparations without even cutting it. It is also one of the most interesting nuts for making your own home-made plant milk, or plant-based creams and nut cheeses.

> On our blog you will find a recipe for Raw Brazil nut bread, and advice on how to make a plant milk.

🤎 How do you use Amazon nut pieces every day?

- In a morning muesli or porridge, simply sprinkled over fresh fruit.
- As a snack, 2 to 4 pieces are enough (the equivalent of one to two whole nuts).
- Blended with filtered water to make a smooth, rich plant milk.
- As a base for plant-based cream, after a few hours of soaking, for raw nut cheeses.
- Crushed over a lamb's lettuce and beetroot salad, with a drizzle of flaxseed oil.
- In a raw tart base (rawcake), mixed with Medjool dates.

And one small step makes all the difference when you eat them: activation.

🤎 How do you activate your Amazon nuts?

As with almonds, hazelnuts or cashews, we advise soaking your Amazon nut pieces before eating them. In concrete terms, here is how:

- Put the pieces in a bowl of filtered water (1 part nuts to 2 parts water). 
- Leave to soak for 4 to 8 hours (overnight is perfect).
- Rinse thoroughly in clean water.
- Eat within 48 hours, keeping them in the fridge.

Soaking starts the nut's germination. There you go, it is very simple, and the difference when you eat them is real - softer texture, milder taste.

🤎 Why pieces and not whole nuts?

Our partner Natural Andes has created a truly innovative and ethical supply chain around the Amazon nut piece. To support artisanal work and the local population, they chose hand shelling. But this manual shelling causes breakage, and these slightly damaged nuts are of no interest to most large exporters. Yet they are absolutely identical in taste and nutritional quality.

Each broken nut is therefore neatly recut by hand by the Bolivian women and men of Riberalta. Their size varies between that of a hazelnut and a large almond. The nut piece is nothing but advantages:

- Anti-waste : nuts damaged during shelling are downgraded, but by making use of these losses, we can save around 15% of the annual production. The pieces therefore come from an upcycling process.
- Job-creating : the manual cutting of broken nuts has led to the creation of a new trade. Today, 20 people are employed solely to cut each nut by hand.
- More practical to eat : consumers prefer it for its size, better suited to their needs than a whole Amazon nut. The size of a hazelnut, the piece can be eaten more easily in a single bite, mixed into a muesli, a yoghurt or a dried fruit and nut mix.

🤎 Still-wild nuts

Amazon nuts are among the rare nuts that are not cultivated. They are gathered in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. The nut ripens at the top of century-old trees, up to 50 metres tall. Amazon nut trees (Bertholletia excelsa) need their natural ecosystem to develop. As with chestnuts, it is up to people to collect the fruit that has fallen from the tree. It looks like a large coconut and contains 10 to 25 nuts. The husk is opened at the foot of the tree with a machete, and the three-sided nuts are carried out of the forest to be shelled.

And here is what is remarkable: gathering Amazon nuts protects the Amazon from deforestation. As long as these trees produce, they are not cut down. It is, in my view, one of the finest examples of wild agroforestry still preserved on the planet.

See the harvest in pictures in this video:

🤎 Ethical, sustainable production

While the Amazon nut cannot be cultivated, its processing is becoming industrialised and mechanised, threatening the livelihoods of families in Bolivia: hundreds of jobs are being lost. The local population depends on manual shelling to make a living, so it is important for us to keep supporting them. What is more, recut nuts limit waste and allow organic producers to innovate.