moringa

I just ate my first few fresh moringa leaves off my little tree. Unlike the dried powder that I have had for months, which tastes much like green tea mixed with spinach, the fresh leaf tastes amazing. It is almost as crisp as lettuce, with a good lasting crunch. The taste is almost like lettuce, but a little more robust. I would liken the difference in flavor intensity between fresh moringa leaf and lettuce to the difference between light and dark chocolate. But the nutritional differences are astounding; moringa has 7x the vitamin C in oranges, 4x the vitamin A in carrots, 3x the potassium in bananas, 3x the iron in spinach, 4x the calcium and 2x the protein in milk. In addition moringa contains a complete set of amino acids. Dried moringa powder is great if you wanna put it into gelcaps and take it as a supplement, but the flavor is just too strong. About 6 months ago I ordered a pound of dried moringa powder, 10 seeds, and an excellent little book entitled "Moringa: Nature's Medicine Cabinet" by Sanford Holst. I tried making the powder into tea and cooking with it; but the flavor is just too strong and much more bitter than fresh leaf. I planted my seeds during a 90 degree heatwave during April. As it happens Kentucky's weather constantly fluctuates and we had a multi week deep freeze. moringa grows naturally in climates where the temperature rarely drops below 70. It does well in California. It is also virtually unknown to Americans. I lost my first sprout to the freeze. A bird ate the second. According to my research fresh moringa seeds have a 80% germination rate. After a few months it dips to 50%. Who knows how old my seeds were, they were from an internet mail order company in California! Two more sprouts came up about a month after I planted them. I had to keep the sprouts under a grow stick because they were so fragile that if I put them outside they would easily be damaged by our cold rain, snow, or hungry birds. A mature plant can die to the ground in a freeze and come back quickly, but not a little sprout. During this process my wife and I moved. The plants had to be moved last, and the little ones were unfortunately badly neglected. My roommate turned off the grow light the situation looked so dire. One died, and the stronger of the two was left with two pitiful branches with yellow leaves. Thankfully we have had three months of ideal temperatures, and my plant has finally reached the point that I can pick a few leaves. It is still a bit weak, and is only a foot and a half tall, rather than the 5 feet it should be, but it is alive. It looks good and healthy. I am going to get a better grow light in a few days to set up a grow rig for this winter. My tree should be 5 feet tall by Christmas. Soon it will provide me with flowers for a relaxing tea, pods that come highly recommended, and seeds that can be pressed for an oil as fine as olive oil, only even more healthy. All of this on top of a large amount of leaves. I cannot wait to eat a moringa salad with a salt and moringa oil dressing everyday in place of daily vitamin pills.