Ogbono, Baby!: Final Thoughts

As you can tell, from reading my previous "Ogbono, Baby!" posts, I feel as though I've stumbled upon a Capital "T" Truth. Whenever I get that feeling, a zillion related thoughts rush through my head as well.

I mean, I've read a ton over the last few decades. History, religion, nutrition, socio-politics, brain science, physics, biology, and on and on. After one has read that much, then when new pieces of data come in, and they resonate, they shake up the whole tree of knowledge. Fruit falls everywhere.

I won't bore you with all of these thoughts of mine. Just a couple. Let's start with fatty acid composition. In terms of fat, Ogbono seed is comprised of about 45% Lauric acid, and 46% Myristic acid.

That high percentage of Lauric acid puts Ogbono in line with coconut oil, another food item that I regularly ingest. It's also in line with the laurel berries that come from the California Bay Laurel trees that grow like weeds on our property. Any guess as to whether I'll be gathering some among the zillions of laurel berries that land on the ground in the Fall, and drying and roasting the seeds?

Lauric acid is a 12-carbon medium-chain saturated fatty acid. Myristic is a 14-carbon one. This distinguishes them from the kinds of long-chain saturated fatty acids that are found in animal products.

You've heard about the problems that animal products cause to our hearts? That's the long-chain stuff. What I read is that the long- vs. medium- distinction is about is whether the molecule can pass through the walls of our small intestines, directly into the blood stream. Short- and medium- chain fatty acids can take this route. But long-chain ones cannot. Instead, they pass through our lymph system, up to our heart, where they are released into the blood stream.

But, you know, Americans can't do subtlety or ambiguity. "Saturated fat is bad for you" is the mantra. Not "Long-chain fatty acids are bad for you." Or, heaven forbid: "Four-legged animal products are bad for you." That last one is easy to say. Unless you are an Agribusiness corporation the business model of which depends upon Americans over-eating animal products.

Well, before I start whipping out molecular diagrams of these fatty acids, let's reverse course and finish up with a simple story. So when I first tried eating the Obgono seeds pictured in the middle mason jar to the right, they didn't taste that bad to me. Sort of a vague walnut taste, with a strange kick that was kind of wierd. 

When I had my Italian-descent colleague try the nut, he said the very same thing. i.e. Walnut, with a strange after-taste.

But when my wife -- a fair-skinned Northern European -- tried the nut, she almost wretched. She said it was one of the worst tasting things she'd ever tried.

Same when each of us sniffed the jar of ground up Ogbono seeds (on the right in the above picture). To me, they smelled vaguely of blue cheese. To my wife, however, the smell was putrid, like dirty laundry socks.

That got me thinking. I'm wondering whether this Magical Nut might not work as well the more North our gene pool goes. Like, I'd say that my gene pool is distinctly Southern Medditerranean -- you know, olive skin and all. Maybe I'm genetically closer to the Africans who use this seed as a staple in their diet. Maybe that's why the seed doesn't taste that bad (or that good) to me, but why it tastes really, really bad to my Northern wife.

I don't know. I'm very curious to see what some of you experience. Particularly, those of you who are of Northern stock. Does the seed perform it's magic on you?