Title: Mesquite - description, history, use and benefits
Headings: MESQUITE

Content: The fruit is a slender, brown pod up to 8
inches long. Medical studies of mesquite and other desert foods, said that despite its
sweetness, mesquite flour (made by grinding whole pods) "is extremely
effective in controlling blood sugar levels" in people with diabetes. The
sweetness comes from fructose, which the body can process without
insulin. In addition, soluble fibers, such as galactomannin gum, in the
seeds and pods slow absorption of nutrients, resulting in a flattened
blood sugar curve, unlike the peaks that follow consumption of wheat
flour, corn meal and other common staples. "The gel-forming fiber allows foods to be slowly digested and absorbed
over a four- to six-hour period, rather than in one or two hours, which
produces a rapid rise in blood sugar,"
Like the Coyote, the Black-tail Jackrabbit, the
Western Diamondback, scorpions, the Saguaro and
prickly pear cacti, the mesquites symbolize our
Southwestern deserts. Like the Indian peoples and
the Hispanic and Anglo settlers, the mesquites define
the very notions of individuality, adaptability,
opportunism, toughness and stubbornness. Occurring
as respectable trees or as small shrubs, they cover a
monumental range, spanning tens of millions of acres
from the southern Rolling Plains and the Texas Gulf
Coast westward across the Chihuahuan, Sonoran and
Mojave Deserts. They prosper in a diversity of
habitats, from humid and sandy coastal plains to the
grassy prairies to perennial and intermittent stream
beds to desert basin shrub lands and dunes to flattop
mesas to mile-high rocky mountain slopes. The mesquites, including the
three species in our
Southwestern deserts, belong
to the legume family, which
ranks near the top of plants
especially adapted to an arid
environment. Typically, the
legumes, which have woody
stems and branches, produce
bipinnately compound leaves
(leaves with two or more
secondary veins, each with
two rows of leaflets).