Moringa- The Wonder Tree

[Music] You are listening to a sustainable World Radio podcast. Sustainable World Radio brings you in-depth interviews, news, and commentary about positive solutions to environmental challenges. Solutions that adhere to the permaculture ethics of Earth care, people care, fair share. Are you interested in learning more about permaculture projects around the globe? How to plant a food forest, restorative design or ethno-botany? Then stay tuned for sustainable World Radio. I'm your host and producer Jill Cloutier. [Music] Welcome, Madyco Gifford to Sustainable World Radio. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to have you. My co is the farmer, an owner of Moranga for Life. She has a farm in Vista, California. I had the good fortune to go on a tour there a few months ago. It was fabulous. Today on this podcast episode, we're going to be learning all about this amazing plant, Moranga. You can share with our listeners. You have an interesting story. You discovered this plant years ago in your work and your past work. Can you tell us a bit about what drew you to this plant and why you're so excited and why you're devoting your life work to Moranga? Years ago, I was an organic inspector and spending a lot of time and energy and work with farmers on soil health and getting that soil quality rights for growing the best foods. I had the idea one day of a specific farm where we really were having a lot of challenges on this particular parcel. I had the idea if we could find one product, one plant to grow that had the most amount of nutrition. I went on a search for a plant with the highest amount of nutrition. I searched botanical libraries and herb books and the material medical and all the different places that I could think of to find the most nutritious plant. One day I had a perennial seed catalog and I think that's what it was called perennial seed catalog. In it listed, Moranga and Moranga in there. It said on the description the most nutritious plant on earth. Nothing more. I said I was looking for but I'd never heard of this plant. It was very curious to me. I got to see it and planted it in my greenhouse and left it because I had a hectic life at that time. When I came back my greenhouse was just literally taken over by this plant. It grew so fast and so vibrant the color of the green is really what it captured me. It literally took my breath away. When you see how vibrant green that is, it was stunned and so curious about it. At the time there were four websites that had anything to do with Moranga. That's 15 years ago. The internet was just really getting going and now there's hundreds of pages of websites that can hardly get through them all. I knew from the beginning I had to get information out to people about this plant. That was already my first clue. Nothing is known about it. It's not listed anywhere. As I learned about it, I started to work with it. It just drew me in more and more. So the listeners know exactly what plant we're talking about. Can you tell us the Latin name of this plant? Yes, Moranga, Olapera. That is a variety that I grow and that is the variety that's the most studied. There's quite a few others, there's 13 others. Another one that's starting to be studied is Stenipotela. Similar to Olapera in a lot of ways, but the studying of the nutritional values has not been done in a wide enough range. I also started to grow that at one point in this. It's a little more problematic. They didn't survive. So I needed to have something that was really, really hearty. What zones does Moranga grow in? This is really an important part of understanding Moranga. It's a tropical plant. That means the equator, the tropical cancer, the tropical catacorn. In that belt around the planet, that's the best place to grow Moranga. We're in Zone 9 in San Diego, so we have a shorter season. It's based on not only heat, but sun hours. So a lot of people try to create enough heat for the plants. They're in Minnesota and they put it in a greenhouse and they put heaters in there and they're keeping it warm. But what's also affecting it is the number of sun hours. It's really important to know your zone if you're interested in going Moranga. I have felt that so many questions and tragedies of Moranga that has died because people try to grow it in their area. But it's not a tropical area. It's maybe Oregon and they only have that heat in the summer. So when you have a summer month that is matching the tropical zone, that's your season for Moranga only. So if it starts to die down, it's because it's going dormant either because of lack of heat or sun hours or both. Before we get into the nitty gritty and the wonderful details of growing Moranga, maybe we should tell. If you could tell our listeners why they should grow this plant. What is it about this plant that so impresses you besides the high nutritional value? What can people use it for? The amazing thing about Moranga is how wide a reach it has. So the leaf, of course, that's what's being studied for nutrition. It has all the nine amino acids you need to get from food. It has this wide range, vitamins, minerals. But what it's also good for is, for example, animal fodder. And that's the research that has been done in Nicaragua by a man named Nicolai Fluidol. He's now retired. But he did a lot of research on the amount that you can be giving to cattle, milk, and improved milk production for cattle, improved weight gain by high percentages. And he lays it all out. So for the whole dairy and milk industry, you know, milk industry and meat industry, we have a non-toxic, easy-to-grow food for. That has no buy product residue that can increase milk production and meat getting a weight gain. It's also something that in developing countries for people, that's one of the things that they also made. It's also in his research work for agriculture. So it has a plant enhancer. It's a growth enhancer. We want to say, you know, growth hormone, but it's really not a hormone. It just has so much nitrogen in the leaf production that you can take that and juice it and dilute it and spray that as a folio spray. And it gives nitrogen right away. It's an easy uptake for plants. And so he showed a lot of increase. And you see it just like. looks just like conventional agriculture. Fields that he planted, sprayers, you know, backpacks sprayer or big machine going through, but what's coming out is a moringa folio spray. It's quite impressive. And so when we look at how to feed the world, we're really looking at how we can do it in a way that doesn't cause any toxicity to plants, animals, or soil. And the soil is so enhanced by moringa because of that amount of nitrogen. So if you're looking at a soil that you need that nitrogen fixing, it's different than a legume, which moringa is also a legume. You know, it has a taproot. It is functioning like a legume because it has that nitrogen in the leaf. The seed of this plant also produces an oil when you press that out. And that oil is really good for skin issues. So it's already been researched pretty widely for skin regeneration of skin cells. So it's for cuts and scrapes and wounds. It's anti-aging. It stimulates the skin in a multitude of ways. And once you take that oil out, what's left is a seed cake. And that seed cake is a coagulant. And it's being used to clarify water. So the important to note is that it's not purifying it. It's clarifying it because it's a coagulant. Other types of water systems like alum is used as a coagulant to take part of the articulate. You know, turbidity out of the water and it waits it and settles it to the bottom. So what you have is clarified water. And it's so much more beneficial. There's so many people who die of issues that have to do with drinking contaminated water that it can highly improve that. The part that's really amazing about Moringa, if you look at the planet and where Moringa grows the best, that melts all around the tropical zone, is also where the World Health Organization has identified as the highest amount of malnutrition. So it's a matter of getting people, that information, how to grow it, how to consume it, so that we have that whole belt of our planet being well said. And what was astonishing to me was that all parts of the plant are edible and/or medicinal, which is pretty rare. It is rare. I don't know of another plant. I've studied a lot about this plant and others. And when we say edible, not all parts are edible, like that we know for sure could be, but we don't have enough research to know. So like the bark has some tannins in it that might not be digestible, but there is. a dye that's produced, it's a blue dye from the bark. So all the parts are usable. The root has biology that has some toxicity. So it could be the amount just like other herbs that we use. Have some toxicity as the amount that you use that could cause a problem. But the root has been traditionally used for low blood pressure. The leaf has been used for high blood pressure. So from the same plant, the high part is for high and the low part is for low. And it matches in a really unique way. It's also called the horse radish tree. So it's because the root tastes identical. I mean, I've tasted that root. The smell of it is also very similar to horse radish. You know, that's a condiment that can be made. You can make a food out of that. The only challenge is when you use the root, you kill the tree. So if you use the leaves that tree goes on, but in areas like the tropics where you have the possibility of so much meringa production, you could start to get into the varieties of food out of it. The seed oil is also an edible oil. It's also a burning fuel oil. So it can be used for a lot of industry, in very fine clockwork, where you don't want to have that oil gummed up. It's also an oil that is very, very hard to go rancid. High burning point for cooking just goes on and on. The list of things, once I started researching this, it was like really. And I think the oil was called oil of Ben. Is that correct? Yes. Ben oil is the common name. And it had there been a big oil industry before the oil oil came into the market a couple of hundred years ago. And so in Jamaica was a big production of meringa and there's still 200-year-old meringa trees there. People have really lost the knowledge about how to use it. They see it and it's growing everywhere, but they don't know that they can be even belief. And we took a trip there, what has been an eye and did like little mini talks just on the street, handing people seed and Montego Bay and saying, "Go home with plant this." And they have a high amount of diabetes and high blood pressure. And so people were taking it and starting to use it again. It's really just getting the education of people knowing what it's used for and how you use it and putting that power in people's hands. One thing, too, that we should remind or tell listeners about is the very high. You mentioned it a bit, but the very, very high nutritional value. Yes. And that's why the World Health Organization and other health organizations have been promoting during the poor a very long time. It's new to the United States. However, we have a growing amount of overfed and undernourished population. We have epidemic, obesity, diabetes. All of that is eating foods that don't have a nutrition. And then you have to continue to eat and eat and eat to try to get more. The bodies are actually starving for food. But if you don't have real food, your body is still searching for that nutrition. And that really brings me back to-- and I always say that if anybody who knows me always say, if it's not in the soil, it's not in the plant. It's not in our food. And so a big part of my work is in the soil biology. And that is how you're going to get the highest amount of nutrition in any plant. So if you're starting with the plant that has the highest amount of nutrition, and you're getting that soil biology right, you really have something. It is just a unique opportunity for people who are dealing in health issues all around the world to really start to get this plant growing and everybody's backyard. So but an important part-- like I have mentioned a little bit soon-- is to know your growing zone. Because your zone might only let you grow it in your summer months. And then it goes dormant. So meringa is a tropical plant, but it's also sensitive to freeze and frost. And it can die of root rot really fast, so you cannot let it stand in water. But yeah, once people start to see how much nutrition adds a food, do you eat a small amount and you feel nourished? So this is one of the also effects that I see with meringa is people who start to eat meringa realize that they don't have to eat very much food. They don't feel hungry. They start to get nourished. The body really starts to be able to have the nutrition it needs for healing. And that's how healing happens with meringa. It's healing because your body actually has the building blocks for its own system to sufficiently heal itself. And that's what you're getting when you get any kind of food. It is our medicine. But that has to be filled with everything that plan is supposed to have. The way you do it is to have that in the soil, so that microbiology is creating that real food substance there. That real health. And can you tell our listeners how you take care of your soil when you're growing your meringa? Yeah, I have my soil made for me. So I use so much of it. And people come to my farm to where they see that I have these big avocado crates lined up. And the meringa is inside those crates. Because we have issues like gophers and rabbits and field mice who want to eat the-- well, the gophers likes the root. The rabbit will take the new growth and field mice will eat the seed. So-- you have health-- I bet you have healthy animals running around the farm. It's true. It's true. So I've had to just miss the amount of work that it takes in the short season I have. So our season is from June through maybe November, like we do our last harvest before Thanksgiving. And so I'm creating the soil. And it's a top soil that's made for me with 10% worm casting. And then I use pearlite. So it's 50% pearlite, so they have the drainage. And so that starts the process. And then I'm creating compost, you know, thermal compost with a microorganisms and making tea, compost tea. So worm casting is a big part of the planting process. Microwriza is a part of our planting process. So that you have the fungi creating more food absorption. So there's a number of things like that. So that plant, the merenga, is determining what it needs at any time and upticking that food and having the food right there at the root where it needs it. And because I have it in those containers, so I know that I'm continually feeding that, feeding the microorganisms so that plant is thriving. It's depending on me for that. So it's different than if you are out and you start creating your permaculture environment. All other plants are you planting at the base of that can be doing that work too. And we have that as a part of our work is the permaculture principles because we grow also a lot of other foods here. And we utilize merenga. Like today, we built a compost pile. Our second one, just for dealing with our courses so that we can be training people how to do this. And so we put merenga in that. That's a high nitrogen food. So when you're even building your compost, merenga is an ingredient there. How would you access that nitrogen to help plants grow? Put it in your compost. It sounds like it's one way. Merenga has much to in the leaf. So the leaf can be, like I had said earlier, you make a juice out of it. And now you have a full year spray. And you can also see that right into the soil too. As a tea, so you're making a merenga leaf tea for the soil. Do you ferment it? I don't ferment it. But I know that some of the additive people do they start that fermenting process as a way to get cultures, different microorganisms to grow. We haven't started to do that. Once we're doing a project with Dr. Eileen Ingham, she will work together and determine what the biology is specific, the balance of fungi, the bacteria for merenga, for what we need to grow. Then I'll be using that information. The chembita would do some fermentation and look to see what are the fungi food or bacteria foods that we make sure that it's having that available. Is there a zone or a place where you cannot, where merenga will not grow? Probably the North Pole and South Pole, those extremes. Every place is going to have a short season. If you have a summer where you have heat and full sun, you can grow merenga just during that time. And then you'd have to bring it in. So one of the things that's also really amazing about merenga is its life force. So one experiment that I did early on was to take the root right out of the ground and put it in trays. I just had this open tray. And I let it out in the elements a year after year. And every season I would take some of those roots. And it looks-- it's a tap root. So it's about six inches long. That's the size that I had at the time. And I would plant them every season. And every season they grew. And I did this for six years. And it still continued to have a life force in it. What you-- where merenga is sensitive is when you frisk sprout it. So this is where a lot of people, no matter where they're growing it, have trouble, is a lot of what was shown on the internet was putting it in containers and then transplanting it. If you're in a zone, like tropical zone, where you can plant it in the ground, there's no need to do this activity. This is only if you want to preserve that root and create a new root. nursery where somebody is growing it because it can be stored just like bulbs once it has gone through a growing season. So it's fragile to transplant in the first season and that's because the root it'll be white kind of like a die cone it'll look like and once it's gone through over winter it creates a bark on the root. Once it has a bark on that root you can take it out of the ground and you can lay it out in the elements for six years and it'll still have a life for it. You can plant it and it'll grow. One of the things that I'm doing for people who live in those cold zones is they can order that root on a website. It's a year old plant, it's a yearling but they receive it just as the root. So once that the second year it starts to have the top on it when our growing season starts. I cut the top off and send that to people. So in their growing season which might be only from June to October or September they already have a year old tree that will start to grow and produce leaf right away as opposed to planting a seed in June and getting a little bit of growth before your growing season ends. But if you do grow it by seed you can still store that out of the cold let it go over winter and then you will have your own plant the next season. It just takes more care and attention that it isn't freeze if you're in a cold zone. So where you live is really really important. There's a lot of this information about how to germinate a seed and all these measures people who have called this and I did this or you soak it in water for 24 hours and you put it in the closet and then you wait this amount of time and then it comes out and you have to transplant it and then it died. They're doing this in the winter and realize that that information was had probably hopefully other information before that saying you have to do this in June if you're in a cold season but it doesn't seem that all the information comes along with it. It's really important to know you're growing zone if you can grow you know like tomatoes and zucchini and cucumber at that time of year that's the time of year you probably can grow moringa. Is moringa a tree or a shrub or both? Yeah it's a good question. Moringa is three things. It's a cut and come again. So in farming we have things like um chart and kale and lettuce that you can grow and then you just take parts of it. You know your harvest from there but the plant continues to grow that's called cut and come again. You can do that with moringa. It's also a shrub so the way it becomes a shrub is when the first dot comes up you cut it down to about an inch and you harvest that and you'll there's your cut and come again. So you have like a foot or two of growth and you can eat that and cut it and then moringa will send a couple more shoots out. If that gets to be two feet tall you cut it there's your cut and come again and as this happens more and more and you let that get taller it'll come to be as wide as eight feet wide and six feet tall and you'll have all of those possibility for leaf production. So there's your bush and you can also let it grow just as a tree which we don't recommend in you know the areas that are have a short season if you're going from nutrition because it'll get taller and taller and taller and all your leaf will be a delayce canopy and it'll be go out of your reach and you'll only have as much leaf production as those few branches that will come out. So in areas like the tropics they have 30 and 40, 50 foot trees but you can't necessarily get to that leaf. In areas that people you know across United States I always recommend that people cut it down. You can leave one stock to go tall and not cut that down every time and just cut around it or leave several you can end up shaping your tree by how you cut it back. So every time you're cutting those branches off you're harvesting it and once those branches start to be an inch in diameter you can also create a cutting. So the other phenomenal thing about meringa is it also can grow by cutting. I've tried a lot of different diameters and the smaller the diameter the less likely it's going to take and in our growing season we don't do cuttings later than October because it doesn't have enough of the sun hours you know that heat for it to get the first leafing out. So you know when you do a cutting you have to also be doing the only in your growing zone and give it the maximum amount of time. So for cuttings the spring is the time the spring to mid summer late summer you can do cuttings and after that you really want to just let the plant stay with that branching so that your next spring you know it'll have a bigger diameter and you can cut that. We cut them to about two and a half feet tall so one branch might have two trees right two cuttings. We cut those and put them in soil the soil that we make and we put them inside like a little mini greenhouse just so that heats up a little bit more for that zone you know to be right around those cuttings. So we're pampering them a little bit as the cutting. When we do a seed we don't do that at all it can just be out in the elements but we know we have a short time to get that leaf to come out so we're creating a little bit more heat around it. And when you do cuttings do you just put the cutting in the soil do you add like any plant hormone or anything to help it grow or no? Nope we don't do anything but you know what's in that soil is the soil that I've created so I know that it has high amount of nutrition in that. We also utilize the big avocado crate so that's how we're growing the murenga predominantly. We have it in the ground as well but for cuttings we have the big boxes that we have that soil in so in those boxes so it's three by three by three we can fit a lot of cuttings. We don't have to have separate containers and the containers for a murenga is a deep pot. It's not your shallow regular nursery pot because it's got that taproot it wants to keep going down deep. You don't have to have it wide because it's not going to have branching roots like other plants it's going to have a taproot. So we have containers that are 2 1/2 inches by 9 inches deep or 4 inches by 18 inches deep. You can plant a seed in that tall pot and it can stay in over two or three years. So I'm living in Santa Barbara County. Would the murenga trees or warmer areas but not the tropics could the trees stay in the ground year round? Do you get a frost or freeze? Maybe once in a blue not very often. Yeah so a frost will you know it'll survive because we get a frost here in San Diego two once in a while. 26 degrees is the lowest that I've tracked for it to survive in San Diego. So also a wind chill if you think about kind of like an antenna if you have a tree that's about two three or four feet tall it's going to take in the cold from that and send it down into the root. So you do want to pay attention if you have it in the ground in areas that you get multiple days in a row of frost that can kill it and that are certainly free because it is a tropical plant. Some people do if they know that they're you know they're going to have some cold they'll cut the entire top down and mulch it pretty heavily and put a blanket on it and you know when people really tuck it in and put it till I mean it's like when if you're in these areas and you know a lot of people just love muringa and they want it to grow so they really have to take care of it in those areas. And one thing people should know is in which I learned on your tour was that we had two little muringa trees or shrubs they're tiny but they're getting bigger. And last winter all of a sudden there it was just a stick and we thought Kevin was like we killed it oh no but then it came back and now they're just thriving and we gave it some compost tea and compost and verma compost in the soil and they're doing they're great. Yeah. And that sort of look like ours look like that too and when it's dormant like other plants that go dormant they're sleeping in the winter and they'll drop all the leaves and it'll just look like a stick in the ground or a stick in the pot and that's normal. Once it starts to get warm most sun hours and for San Diego I've calculated because we know we have what we call migray very overcast days in May and June glue again a lot of overcast so when there's six days of full sun so six days in a row of full sun that's when our growing season starts. Even if on the seventh day it's overcast those six days in a row seem to just like jump start it in other areas Oregon right away you have summer as soon as you have three days that might be enough because you know you're going to have 100 days or whatever so as you start to work with Miranda and see the pattern of your seasons year after year you'll start to see and every area has microclimates where it's warmer and it starts to warm up faster and so that might start your summer sooner but you still no matter where you are it's the sun hours that they're going to determine how long that Miranda goes even if it's hot the voice of the determining factor it's still a tropical predate still tracking the sun. How would Miranda do with this drought that we have in California and elsewhere around the world with the weather patterns or weather seems to be changing a bit how does it survive during times of dryness. Yeah Miranda is a drought tolerant plant because it will fit a taproot and taproot trees. of all types have a better survivability during a drought because that tap bridge is going down to seek moisture that you'd never see at the surface and also getting to the water table. Once it hits the water table you never have to water it again. Those chapter trees of all types are the best trees to have during the drought season and we are having a very severe drought here in Southern California, all across California. So that's a really important part of a merrier for us. We are really aware of the water usage so all of our plants get 10 minutes. We have one hour per gallon emitters and they get 10 minutes a day. It's a really small amount of water but it's enough because and I want I'm monitoring that too. I'm looking to see how that's going. You know going through and testing the soil and the soil moisture. This is one of the challenges with merengue and I'm sure that you have it in a place where you don't it doesn't need a lot of water intending to and that's why like it's a perfect plant in permaculture because you can create your soil and you can put your merengue in there and things will grow at the base of the merengue plant because it's a tap root and it's bringing that nutrition up through that tap root feeding those shallower roots right creating those different stories and so you can do that and it retains a lot of water that way. You save a lot of water when you have that biology that food web retains water so between 20 and 70% water saving when you're working on that soil base. So in drought situations it's critical that people realize that if you can retain that soil biology you're going to have the moisture right there and you don't need a lot. Plansible you know stress a little bit over it but if you have that biology you have nature working in your favor and that's what we need we need to have more of those kinds of systems set up so that those extreme weather conditions don't affect us and have everything dropped because everything is so reliant on city water means pool water rather than nature's water. And holding the water in the soil. Yes exactly holding in the soil and creating all that life for the myaguro biology so that now you have that health food possibility under the ground so you have all that food possibility in your plant. So all of that is saving of time and energy and resources and water and it's something we have to switch to because we already have gotten the confessions from commercial farming that they cannot feed the planet. We hear it over and over this is the reason they say we need GMOs because they cannot feed the planet but permaculture can and we already know that just we have to get into the whole system we use the shift to that because we know that permaculture farms can feed the world that's already done proven so we have to get into our mainstream. We have to start working with nature nature is unemployed right now. It's time to employ those creatures those microbes and the plants can do their job of sucking the carbon out of the air the soil can hold it the entire nature. Right exactly they've been doing it for all this time and it's so underutilized it's our most underutilized resource on the whole planet and we wouldn't be here but so that whole system functioning in the way that it has and this disturbance that we've created and with Dr. Inham's work she's been demonstrating over and over again that you can reverse that in as a growing season. It's just amazing and so inspiring when I've been looking at her to her research in the case studies and so that's like oh you just see it right from your eyes undeniable why aren't we now just doing that but and everybody's backyard you can do it you know and her work is very accessible and easy to implement and it makes sense and you feel inspired all the way along and so you know there's no reason to not do it. And when sure once at least in my case once I was aware of the life within the soil and the whole community that's living there it is just for me I just started to feel reverence for how incredible the connections were and how they how all the beings work together. It's exactly right I mean we have really lost the connection to that power source just underneath our feet and just focused on what we see above ground and it's really true my whole journey with Meringa has been very connected to the natural forces the way that we traditionally used to connect to plants by getting information from the plant intelligence and the soil I mean all of those living beings are all around us and for the most part we've walked around blind to that and we see what's happened to our planet because of that because everybody blind going through and creating the systems so yeah that is such a critical part and most people who start to work with Meringa extensively I feel really called to work with Meringa and I feel the same way wow people calm and say kind of have a feeling like it would sense something to me and I'm like yeah wow what did it say what did it tell you to do because by giving you some instructions listen yeah okay dance and do it because that's virtually what I did I just paid attention and just kept doing what I heard what I thought could be the next thing and and that's really how I have come to doing the Meringa certification course the growers course because I've seen now over the years the quality of Meringa that's been produced and it's really been important for me to make sure that everyone is producing the highest amount of nutrition in that Meringa highest quality and that the consumers that's to understand and to know what good Meringa is supposed to look like smell like taste like what is supposed to feel like when you use it and because it's new for most people they don't know and so people who are producing it might also not know are just going along and think okay this is good and people are using it and but the effects that you have from Meringa are so powerful this is an amount that you need to take at any one time can be very small for really big health benefits but if you're using Meringa that hasn't been grown properly or processed in the correct way you could have pathogens and molds and people send to me their samples from all over the world they want me to carry their product that they're producing but I send all of even my production to a laboratory and get the microbiology tested for pathogens, coliform, the standard plate count, E. coli, somonella, fungus and mold so I know what's going on with that that product and some people who have sent me their product that looks green and beautiful it smells like Meringa and I have it tested in it extremely contaminated so then what's out there is a lot of Meringa that has to be treated because of the contamination we've dealt with so many issues along the way and so now I've been certifying people to grow the way I do with permaculture principles with vermiculture, soil biology, composting, correct composting and now the key component will be added when we finished the study with Dr. Inhum there will be actual soil biology for Meringa specific and so those will be all the pieces it's been amazing to do these courses people have come from all over the world and we've been exposed to projects and the passion that people have growing Meringa once they became aware of it every day I have an email from somebody who's projects in Uganda or in Zimbabwe and this is what happened and what do I think and some really moving our work out into the world and the experience that I've had growing Meringa for these 15 years that I can help people grow the best Meringa and people could be competitors of mine and they have done in my courses and it doesn't matter you know I don't work on the same business principle I work on nature's principle of how we're going to work together and create everything in a better way and if we are being able to support our life functions on this planet with something amazing like Meringa we all have to have that same basic information on how to do that I feel it's not something that I can control or contain I got that freely from the plant itself and so I give that freely I mean I make that available what people can come and learn So if someone is listening and wants to sign up for your course they want to learn to speak Meringa like you do how can they do where do they where can they find you and how can they sign up well our next last course for this season is um November 8th through the 12th so it's on my website and we're in the for life.com under products it's also one of the slides many first on my homepage and it also lists the certifications that we give one is for a grower and grower certification so as somebody who actually will grow Meringa in this way will have the slab biology it'll be lab tested and they get that specific certification as a grower and that product gets Meringa quality assurance certificate. There is also a Meringa educator certificate and that's somebody who wants to be trained in all of the avenues of Meringa and growing it and educating people about it and we do a power point at the end of the five day after they've got all of that information they can make a copy of that PowerPoint and use it and change it you know make it their own and but have all that basic information and so once they have I've done two lectures and I have that information feedback from it and they have that certification. We also have Merne the Corps, like a Peace Corps member and that's a certification for somebody who will do multiple trainings with us because they'll be trained in a short climate and in a tropical climate. They may never grow a number of themselves as a crop or as a business but they want to go and work on farms. So it's another resource that a Merne the Grower can have on their farm or somebody who's trained and certified as a Merne the Corps member to come and work on their farm with them. There's also Merne the Trainer, so somebody who will learn to do these trainings all around the world and there are two people now who are being trained by me to be Merne the Trainers. What is from Mexico? He will have been to all three of my trainings and a permaculture expert and president from permaculture in Mexico, it's two of Mexico. And so they're available to go to some of these different places where Merne the Corps could be done in a location where those local people could come or close to the country. So a lot of the work that we're doing is across Africa, there's a coalition, Colorado coalition for African empowerment and they have attended two of the courses and so I'm training two people once for the southern countries and one for the northern countries so that those 19 countries who are in that coalition can go there to the country in Africa for that training. It's quite amazing, the people who come and the way in the course that they can connect to each other and each other's projects and the projects evolve right in front of us during those five days as well. It's been really amazing to see because we're in a kind of pressure cooker when we do this because there's just no other way I have seen to give you know all that information. We also do a hands-on how to harvest and process and dry and go over dealing with pathogens and lab testing and know how to read a lab test and be testing it right there and know whether the practices are dealing with those issues. So a lot of very practical information but also knowing that all of this grows within an ecosystem and getting all of those functions in nature working with you. It's quite an amazing time so that's listed on my website those certifications and the next one we have won't be until June. We will also be traveling around Mexico and processing other places in the tropics over the winter to find places where Meringue is already growing and set up in the tropical setting the same course. So your website is Meringue for life.com and if someone wants to email you is the best email info at Meringue for life.com. So info at Meringue, M-O-R-I-N-G-A-F-O-R-L-I-F-E.com. This has been fabulous. I just love this plant even more than I did before I called to. And you know for listeners to know it really the little trees that we're growing I eat the leaves off them and it tastes great. They are so tasty and we do a lot of things once you are growing your Meringue trees. You can make so many different foods like a tour and also during our course we serve a Meringue drink that is with fresh Meringue leaves and other things that grow here. Men we might mix with in or lemon grass and so that's a fresh green drink that we make and it's diluted it's not just juice because it's a very very strong flavor and effect. And then we have different foods so we make a pesto, we have different salads and sauces and desserts all made with Meringue. So by the end of the course and people have done the five day course Meringue is pretty much a part of every cell in your body. And it was delicious. Delicious. You know and so our goal is to pay attention to our website. We will be adding more and more foods so that people see that this is something you can have in your daily food and as a food it becomes a medicine. People have healed so many things using Meringue from diabetes to fibromyalgia, every kind of liver issue. A lot of things that deal with inflammation. And while it doesn't I haven't seen you know let it like heals AIDS or heals some of these things what it does work on are some of the symptoms. So fatigue is a result of some of the different illnesses and Meringue is so effective. I mean people have used that so much for fatigue and being able to function and live normal lives because they don't they're not spending most of their time just trying to get the energy they need to do simple things. So it's being used for all these different health issues all across the planet now that people have become more aware of the medicinal uses of Meringue but basically eating it as a food. Makes me hungry thinking about that yummy Meringue pesto that I got at your cup was so good. Yeah it's just it's so versatile so you can put in all different types of foods and all different types of cuisine, traditional foods for Filipinos it's called Molongai or Kalamongai. And they use it in soups and a lot of the weeps used in India it's a common food the the drugstick tree is their common name and they eat the seed pod and they make chutneys and so forth and even a place like India where it's this is native to and it's a part of aerobic medicine. People have kind of lost the use of it. So it's kind of come full circle back to India for dealing with hunger issues. They have a lot of population with hunger and this is a traditional food so it grows wild there. But yeah it's it's a fabulous food and can be added to just about anything every kind of pesto or salsa or pasta I mean it's really not a limit to what you can do with it. That's great. Well thank you so much Mariko Gifford owner of Meringue for life and for information visit meringueforlife.com you can email her at [email protected]. Thank you so much. You're welcome thank you thank you so much for this opportunity it's one of those moments and time for me that I can see you know just getting information out to people is really critical to connect with people whose passion it is to share that information so I'm very happy about that. Thank you so much. You've been listening to a sustainable world radio podcast you can find us online at sustainableworldradio.com and also on iTunes. For more information about permaculture and ecology visit the sustainable world media YouTube channel where you'll find videos about permaculture aquaponics organic gardening, rainwater harvesting and much much more. sustainable world radio is a listener supported program. If you like what we do please consider making a donation to the show. I'm your host and producer Jill Cloutier and thank you so much for listening. [Music]