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Castanospermum Australe Moreton Bay Chestnut Blackbean Seeds
Great big packet of 5+ huge bean like seeds!
Despite being incredibly nutritious and used as a staple food by the Aborigines in the old days, these guys are very poisonous if eaten untreated raw.
Every 100grams of fresh raw seeds contains 1,425 kJ (341 kcal) of which 62.36% are carbohydrates, 2.12% are sugars, 15.2% dietry fiber, 21.6% protein and 1.42% are fats and oils.
That same 100grams of fresh raw seeds also contains about 12%(123mg) of your daily calcium needs along with 50%(352mg) of your phosphorus, 48%(171mg) of the needed magnesium, and about 32%(1483mg)of your potassium.
Plus a heap of really toxic stuff that will no doubt make you crook as a dog..
To make them edible they need to be slow roasted all day in the coals of a fire, then removed and chopped into tiny pieces and placed in a running creek for a few days-weeks.
This leaches out and washes away the toxic components, along with some of the nutrition.
Once the seeds have been roasted and leeched, they are then dried in the sun, and finally pounded into a flour, then finally made into small cakes/patties which are roasted, again.
If you stuff up any step of the procedure you could end up dead, so despite the size, and the massive amount of “potential” nutrition, in reality I don’t reckon it is really worth the hassle or the risk unless you are in a survival type situation.
Because they are such a popular tree, and the seeds are so recognizable, wanna be “bushtucker men” make themselves sick all the time with these guys, and having seen a doofus mate do it years ago on a fishing trip, yeah, not recommended and definitely not for me unless SHTF.
Now don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean don’t grow them!
They are a great tree and they are are definitely worth having.
Amazing flowers, kinda like African tulip tree, Spathodea campanulata, except not weedy and the flowers are safe for the bees(the tulip tree flowers attract and kill bees! This guy just gives them a feed.)
Really easy to grow, just soak them in warm water for a day or two, then half bury them in a pot of sandy soil mix. Within a month they send down a root and the seed splits on the surface, sending up a shoot.
Very popular as a houseplant or kept on desktops in offices, said to reduce ions, purify the air. Massive Asian market and Australia exports tonnes of these seeds every year.
It is naturally found all along the East Coast of Australia in Queensland and New South Wales, and even in the Pacific islands of Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
There you have folks, another native Australian beauty!
Wild harvested by me and the Mrs, no chems, no nasties, no problems!!!
