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

Content: the trunk
may be up to 24 inches in diameter. Velvet Mesquite has dark-brown, smooth bark that separates into long,
shaggy strips. Narrow, bipinnately compound leaves 2 to 3 inches long
are sharply pointed. They are dull green in color with gray hairs. Velvet Mesquite blooms in April, and sometimes again in August,
displaying small, fragrant, greenish yellow flowers in slender, cylindrical
spikes up to 4 inches long. 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.