2010/08/10

The Argan Oil story


The Argan Oil story

Argan oil?
Argan oil comes from the argan tree (Argania Spinosa), an endemic tree in southwestern Morocco. Used locally for centuries, nowadays argan oil is attracting increasing interest from outside of Morocco, thanks to both its cosmetic and dietary properties. Ancestral method of argan oil extraction. Once ripe, argan fruits are typically collected by women and brought to village where they are broken down the traditional way between two stones, (left shells are usually used to feed needed fire). After getting rid of the shells, the almonds are then closely crushed along with some water in a handmade mill called Azerg. Then the obtained dough is kneaded repeatedly and pressed by hands to extract argan oil. The residue is conserved and used to feed own livestock. Using this traditional way, it takes more than 10 hours to produce just one liter of argan oil. Argan almonds are gently roasted before being crushed yielding an oil used in daily kitchen recipes.
For cosmetic purposes, we should use argan oil that comes from the not roasted almonds. The production of Argan oil has always been a merely matter of those Moroccan local families. But recent exploitations of argan fruit has taken it to an even more crafty, let alone industrial level because of the publicity that has been made on the virtues of argan oil. Local women's cooperatives have joined forces to produce more of this miraculous oil the traditional way.
A part of argan oil production is intended for export to Europe, Canada and the United States, which reinforces the local socio-economical role of this magically precious oil. Some of argan oil production is meant for high level cosmetic usage after further processing in laboratories

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