We Might Be Eating Cactus in the Future | Hacker News Reader

We Might Be Eating Cactus in the Future

earther.com

43 pointscurtis43 comments

Cactus-based dishes and prickly pears are common foods in Mexican cuisine, and hardly uncommon in the US, due to a large population of Mexican descent.

Cactus is cheap, delicious, and can be found in your local Hispanic foods mart. Prickly pears are high in fiber, and only about 40kcal/100grams — Sprinkle a little bit of Tajín on them and you've got a guilt-free snack.

I suppose it will become more common in the future, but the main reason for that will probably be due to the growing Hispanic population in the US.

Sounds ripe for an MBA to take it and brand it as a hipster snack discovered from Mexico.

Starbucks had a prickly pear Frappuccino this past summer:

https://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/frappuccino-blended-be...

Confession: I actually tried it out of curiosity, and it was pretty decent.

I love an example in this direction of `That Indian Drink`. When I first saw a label of it I read it in my mind as spoken by a Southern California Valley Girl accent. http://www.thatindiandrink.com/behind-that-drink/ Pretty funny play on likely found ignorance by others mixed with self-deprecating humor.

My thoughts exactly. The 'nopal'[0], which has kind of a weird texture to me but does not taste all that bad. Also, I just learned that it's called "Prickly pears" in English, so thank you for that. I always just called them 'nopal' even when speaking English :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopal

I've almost always referred to prickly pears by their colloquial Spanish name, tuna, but that gets pretty confusing to non-Spanish speakers.

Nopal is the word for green vegetal pads, somewhat like green beans with okra mucus. Tuna is the word for the bright purple or yellow fruit, which has a flavor similar to watermelon.

Oops, yeah I was referring to prickly pears. The bright purple and yellow ones are fantastic. I generally stick with the green ones, since the other two are dangerous as far as stains are concerned, particularly if you're sharing them with young ones!

My in-laws mix both "nopal" and "tuna". Possibly depending on context, but I'm still studying Spanish and nowhere near 'native speaker' level.

I just call them "nopal" as I hear that word more often. Possibly due to the saying "Nopal en la frente" when they tease my sister-in-law her husband.

I can imagine "tuna" being confusing to English-speaking natives :-)

Cactus fruit is becoming a common seasonal thing in most Texas grocery stores. It is cheap and soooo delicious whether green or red. You can find prickly pear tuna as well, but this is still considered ethnic food.

What is the difference between “cactus fruit” and “prickly pear tuna”?

The genus of cactus whose fruit people eat most commonly is called nopal or “prickly pear” (and according to a web search is the state plant of Texas), and “tuna” is the name of its fruit in Mexico.

I always thought it was just another name for napolitos. In that case I will say the prickly pear leaves are commonly available in many grocery stores as an ethnic food item. The fruit, on the other hand, is quickly becoming a premier produce item in many major stores here, but the fruit are only available for about 3-4 weeks each year.

Nopal is the name of the “pads” (stems) of the cactus. Tuna is the name of the fruit. Nopalito just means “little nopal”.

The HN title is worse than the already bad article title as it loses the implied "some people already do this, but it may become a lot more mainstream/widespread as it works well as a solution to some of our current global challenges."

How do you create a title conveying that without it being hyperbolic click-bait while keeping it at 80 characters or less? I have no clue. But that's the gist of this article.

Some Already Do, But Eating Cactus May Become Mainstream Under Global Pressures.

Not perfect, but it took me 10 seconds, and of course, is less inviting to clicks.

I think I originally submitted it with the title "We’ll All Be Eating Cactus in the Future", mostly because I thought the "eating cactus" part was more interesting than the "climate change" part.

The "Some already do" part seems awfully unnecessary.

A fair portion of the world actually already eats cactus on a regular basis.

Cactus to Be More Common Food in Future

Prickly Pears are delicious! Both the leaves and the fruit. Most Hispanic grocery stores carry them. Well worth the adventure.

They go amazing with tacos

And in margaritas!

I love them, but the seeds are a pain.

Just swallow them. Same as a guava.

Also delicious in frozen margarita form!

Remember the rule of paw, don't pick the prickly pears by the paw.

From chicago, cactus is super commonplace streetfood in tacos, same all over the US. Dumb article

I'm always amazed by the wide range and variety of food, we can consume. Never heard of edible cactus, I love to try them.

Nopal[1] is common in Mexican and TexMex cusines[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopal [2] http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodmexican.html

If you're in the US most Mexican places serve at least one dish with cactus, even here in the Northeast.

In the northeast region of Brazil, which has arid climate similar to north Africa, cactus has been used for cattle and human consumption since forever. I know of four edible species, and one is even used for jam and liquor.

It's the backup plan when the drought hits hard - which is basically every other year in that region.

I ate cactus quite frequently when I lived in Mexico. It’s pretty good when prepared well.

Used to eat a tasty cactus soup at my favorite Mexican place in Texas.

How do you prepare it? I've only tried it once and I didn't much care for it.

I was hoping this was about some impending legalization of Peyote!

Context: Recently relocated to Mexico (July '17)

As is common to newcomers, I was struck with bouts of diarrhea on a regular basis for the first few weeks. When I started eating "tuna" (which is the prickly pear fruit mentioned in the linked article) every morning as part of my breakfast routine, the intestinal issues went away. I don't know for sure that the two things are connected, but definitely has made living here a lot easier.

Surely the title should be "We’ll All Be Eating Cacti in the Future Thanks to Climate Change"? Plural of cactus, as we'll be eating more than one.

I'd say the jury/consensus is still out, or rather, hasn't even been convened. One could also conceive of it as a mass noun in the context of consumption, similar to corn, beef, or lettuce.

They both work fine, depending on how you meant to structure the sentence.

"We'll all be eating rabbit" and "We'll all be eating rabbits" have slightly different connotations (generic term for the meat vs specific animals) but mean effectively the same thing. The former seems to be the more common usage, as it's more analogous to "We'll all be eating beef" instead of "We'll all be eating cows".

If you are talking about the food substance itself, Cactus is correct.

Prickly Pear is a source of N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC), an amino acid that helps the immune system function - it is the same amino acid abundant in chicken broth & the secret to it's efficacy as a remedy for colds/flu.

"in parts of the world that are getting wetter, for instance, the cactus won’t thrive."

  They certainly thrive in northern Florida.

I had cactus and pork dumplings in china once. They were definitely tasty, with a sage-like bite to them.

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