Ingredient Spotlight: Mongongo Oil

Where does Mongongo Oil come from?

• It is sourced from a rural village in Africa.
• The Mongongo or Manketti Tree is a member of the Euphorbia family. A large, spreading tree, it reaches 15-20 meters tall and is found on wooded hills and amongst sand dunes, particularly on Kalahari sand soils.

How is Mongongo Oil harvested and processed?

• The egg-shaped, red-brown fruit ripens and falls between March and May, and contains a thin layer of edible flesh around a stone hard shell. Inside this shell is a tasty and highly nutritious seed or nut similar to an almond that, when pressed, yields the bright yellow Mongongo Oil. In some years, the fruit is so abundant that they lay knee deep on the ground.
• The Mongongo seeds are harvested from the wild by organized groups of rural women. The women are organized into groups from each village and then work together thus enabling them to monitor the quality of the seeds with their peers.
• The women extract the kernels manually. The kernels are then sold for pressing, filtering and packaging.

Traditional Uses of Mongongo Oil

• Mongongo oil is used as a body rub by the !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari to cleanse and moisturize their skin, and protect it against the harsh desert environment. The same tribe also eats the Mongongo fruit as their primary food. The nuts also contain: calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, zinc, thiamine, riboflavin, nicotinic acid, and high concentrations of vitamin E.

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