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BIXA ORELLANA - ANNATO.

 

This plant (a tropical shrub), stands alone in its family; a profusely fruiting shrub, reaching 6 - 20 feet tall and age up to about 50 years.

Annato has pointed leaves and pink, white - or pinkish - white flowers.

The small reddish-orange seeds, inside a prickly heart-shaped pod, are crushed and used as food coloring. [...]

 

The indigenous people in Suriname have used the anatto seeds for many centuries as body paint during festivities, as a fabric dye, as a sunscreen and against insect bites.

 

 

www.tropilab.com/bixa-ore.html

 

(Bixa orellana). These spiny red fruit pods will split open when ripe revealing a bunch of seeds surrounded by a red powder called bixin, a non-toxic and tasteless dye.

 

This is the dye that was used originally to make margarine yellow (and therefore more butter-like) when it was first created. It is also used to die the rinds of cheese.

 

Sometimes called the Lipstick Plant in South America where natives traditionally used the endemic plant to die their lips, or mixed it with oil and applied it to the skin to repel insects. Bixin is being used more and more as people eschew artificial dies.

 

It makes a particularly good replacement as very few are allergic to it.

 

www.kauaibotanicalgardens.com/2011/05/old-blog-posts-from...

 

 

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Uploaded on April 6, 2012
Taken on January 15, 2012