| CAROB TREE, CERATONIA SILIQUA, St John's-bread, �locust bean� 12 Fresh Seed pods Shipped in a rigid box Carob consumed by humans is the dried (and sometimes roasted) pod, and not the 'nuts' or seeds. Carob is mildly sweet and is used in powdered, chip, or syrup form as an ingredient in cakes and cookies, and as a substitute for chocolate. Ceratonia siliqua, commonly known as the carob tree (from Arabic خَرُّوبٌ kharrūb and Hebrew חרוב haruv), St John's-bread, or locust bean (not to be confused with the African locust bean), or simply locust-tree, is a species of flowering evergreen shrub or tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. It is widely cultivated for its edible pods, and as an ornamental tree in gardens. The ripe, dried pod is often ground to carob powder, which is used to replace cocoa powder. Carob bars, an alternative to chocolate bars, are often available in health-food stores. The carob tree is native to the Mediterranean region, including Southern Europe, Northern Africa, the larger Mediterranean islands, the Levant and Middle-East of Western Asia into Iran; and the Canary Islands and Macaronesia. The carat, a unit of mass for gemstones, and of purity for gold, takes its name, indirectly, from the Arabic word for a carob seed, carrat. Carob consumed by humans is the dried (and sometimes roasted) pod. The pod consists of two main parts: the pulp accounts for 90% and the seeds for 10% of the pod weight. Carob is mildly sweet and is used in powdered, chip, or syrup form as an ingredient in cakes and cookies, and as a substitute for chocolate. Carob bars are widely available in health food stores. A traditional sweet, eaten during Lent and Good Friday, is also made from carob pods in Malta. Dried carob fruit is traditionally eaten on the Jewish holiday of Tu Bishvat. While chocolate contains levels of theobromine which are toxic to some mammals, carob contains absolutely no caffeine and no theobromine, so is used to make chocolate-flavored treats for dogs. Carob pod meal is used as an energy-rich feed for livestock, particularly for ruminants, though its high tannin content may limit its use. Carob pods were mainly used as animal fodder in the Maltese Islands, apart from times of famine or war when they formed part of the diet of many Maltese. In the Iberian Peninsula, carob pods were used to feed donkeys. The pulp is about 48�56% sugars and 18% cellulose and hemicellulose.[8] Some differences in sugar content are seen between wild and cultivated types: sucrose = about 531 g/kg dry weight in cultivated varieties and about 437 g/kg in wild varieties. Fructose and glucose levels do not differ between cultivated and wild carob. Carob pulp is sold as flour or chunks. The production of locust bean gum (LBG), used in the food industry, is the economically most important use of carob seeds (and nowadays of the carob as a whole). It is produced from the endosperm, which accounts for 42�46% of the seed and is rich in galactomannans (88% of endosperm dry mass). For 1 kg LBG, 3 kg of kernels are needed which come from around 30 kg carob tree fruit. Galactomannans are hydrophilic and swell in water. LBG is used as a thickening agent, stabilizer, gelling agent, or as a substitute for gluten in low-calorie products. If galactomannans are mixed with other gelling substances such as carrageenan, they can be used to thicken food. This is used extensively in canned food for animals to get the jellied texture. The embryo (20-25% of the seed's weight) is rich in proteins (50%) and its flour can be used in human and animal nutrition. The testa (30�33% of the seed's weight) is the seed coat and consists of cellulose, lignin, and tannin. -
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