If you think you’ve seen it all when it comes to superfoods, you’ve probably never seen anything quite like this. Baobab fruit has some seriously legit health claims, so much so that African communities have used it as a cure-all for centuries, particularly to treat fever, stomach problems, even malaria. Now that baobab has found its way to the States, everyone from nutritionists to cutting-edge health gurus to yoga moms (you know, soccer moms who are way more into Vinyasa and kombucha than they should be) is swearing that the superfruit has supercurative powers. Here’s the deal: Baobab fruits grow on gigantic ancient African trees and resemble oblong coconuts on the outside. Crack ’em open, and you’ll find chalky white pods that look like oversized alien marshmallows. Unlike its flashy cousin, the dragonfruit, you won’t find baobab in any produce section. Baobab’s sweet, tangy flesh is already dried when you open it up, so manufacturers just ground this into an ivory powder and sell it. MORE: Seven Ways to Eat Healthy on a Budget As to the health claims, baobab retailer Aduna describes the stuff as a “natural multivitamin”—and that’s not too far from the truth. Independent testing shows that, by weight, baobab boasts higher antioxidant activity than many comparable “superfruits,” including blueberries, pomegranates, and goji berries. More impressively, perhaps, the fruit is super rich in vitamin C (six times more than in an orange), potassium (four times more than in a banana), and magnesium, the latter in which many Americans are deficient. The powder also has nutrients that are tricky to get from plant sources like calcium and iron, and unlike your supplemental horse pills (which you’ve ditched by now anyway, right?), baobab’s got fiber—like, tons of it. By weight, the pulp is 50% roughage, and just two tablespoons of the stuff will give you 8 g fiber, or about a quarter of your recommended daily needs. These are all reasons why African communities have been eating the dried fruit for years (and, also, because it’s easily harvested from naturally growing trees). The powder has a sweet, pearlike taste, which people have traditionally used to thicken soups, stews, and porridge, and stirred into water as a less expensive, allergy-free, and more nutritious milk substitute to milk. “I add it in pancakes, throw it in smoothies, or sprinkle it in oatmeal,” says Mary Grace, founder of Bonga Foods, which sells baobab in a powder and candylike chews. MORE: The One Food Label hat’s Always Worth the Extra Cash So is this superfruit going to go the way of palm oil or quinoa, overharvested to the point where the environment is harmed, traditional cultures are exploited, or exporting countries can no longer rely on the food as a dietary staple? Not necessarily. Most baobab manufacturers support small-scale producers who are able to earn a sustainable living by harvesting the fruit. “We went to these rural areas and realized that there was all this low-hanging fruit on a wild-harvested food that required no investment on the part of the farmer, and it had great value,” says Sara Andrews, a former agricultural policy advisor who started Bumbleroot Foods, which sources its baobab powder from communities in Zimbabwe and Malawi that use the income to improve local schools and building wells. Other companies have similar philanthropic efforts. Bonga Foods, for instance, devotes 10% of its profits to helping women harvesters become more self-sufficient. The company also works with PhytoTrade Africa, an organization that helps protect southern Africa’s growing natural products industry by supporting sustainable production methods and ethical trade.
