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  • From: Bunjov AT aol.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Fwd: Nopales (no-pall'-es) - in today's news!
  • Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:06:50 EDT

Jeez. Sent this to all my Property Owners members and forgot to include
Homesteaders' list members.
Sandy



____________________________________
From: Bunjov
To: SLYSPI
CC: ellen1950 AT earthlink.net, Butchfarrington, Debifarrington,
BrokenTailRanch, vasseura AT hughes.net, mojavehome AT gmail.com,
ghancock AT bcsmechanical.com,
diana40355 AT msn.com, maureen.reilly AT sympatico.ca
Sent: 10/10/2008 2:58:26 P.M. Pacific Standard Time
Subj: Nopales (no-pall'-es) - in today's news!


Just an off-the-wall transmission to everyone - interesting stuff! From the
ACWA newsletter. Too bad, says I, that we are Mojave and prickly pear is
Sonoran.

As an aside, my mother-in-law, bless her, used to use canned 'nopales' the
same as we use green beans - in omelets or served as a side dish with red
chile sauce. When we were in Arizona, she cut the paddles herself and spent
hours
scraping off the thorns so she could cook the sliced paddles for dinner.

Nopales are available in almost every market nowadays, in the Hispanic foods
aisle.

Just sharing.
Cool concept.

This is of particular concern to me because in past years, when 'labs' have
been busted out here, the contents are simply dumped into the sand, and -
I'm
assuming - the nastiness eventually works its way down into our groundwater.
I have asked law enforcement about this before, and gotten no viable
response.

Sandy

Cactus Goo Makes Water Safe
Jessica Marshall, Discovery News

Sept. 17, 2008 -- The slimy ooze inside prickly pear cactuses that helps the
plants store water in the desert can also be used for scouring arsenic,
bacteria and cloudiness out of rural drinking water, according to research
at the
University of South Florida in Tampa.

Biochemical engineer Norma Alcantar first learned of the _cactus's_
(http://reference.howstuffworks.com/cactus-encyclopedia.htm) unique
abilities from her
grandmother, a native of north central Mexico. There, the residual water
from boiling the flat, _oval-shaped lobes of prickly pear_
(http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/08/17/cactus_pla.html) for salads and
other dishes was used to
clear up cloudy water drawn from the river before use for cooking or
drinking.
"When you boil [the prickly pear], what is getting separated is mucilage,"
Alcantar said.
Mucilage is the clear, gooey, viscous liquid from within the cactus which
helps to seal water inside the plant so it can survive desert-dry
conditions.
Alcantar began to study how the mucilage worked to clear cloudy water. She
found that the mucilage binds to the dirt and causes the particles to
coagulate, forming large enough clumps that they can settle out of the
water.
Then, she turned her attention to other water contaminants. The group's more
recent research has shown that the mucilage can also form a complex with
_arsenic_
(http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/14/arsenic-bacteria-lake.html) ,
a carcinogenic water contaminant that can occur naturally or from industrial
or agricultural pollution.
The arsenic-mucilage complex is large enough that it can be removed by
drawing the water through a sand filter.
"Sometimes we get 80 percent removal, and sometimes we get lower than 50
percent removal," Alcantar said. "We don't yet know exactly what it is; we
haven't found what are the exact best conditions for the mucilage [to get the
most
arsenic removal]."
What percentage removal is sufficient will depend on the amount of _arsenic
in the water_
(http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/19/arsenic-diabetes.html)
supply.
Other ongoing research by Alcantar's team has shown that the mucilage can
also kill bacteria in the water, solving another potential water quality
problem. The mucilage either engulfs the bacteria and starves them, or it
binds to
the bacteria and causes them to settle out of the water.
Mucilage consists of carbohydrates and sugars. The team is investigating
exactly how these components interact with bacteria, arsenic and suspended
particles. The evidence so far suggests that when arsenic binds to the
sugars, the
number of charges on the particle changes, which changes its ability to stay
dissolved. Similar processes appear to be at work with the other
contaminants.
Alcantar estimates that one lobe of prickly pear would supply a family of
five for about five weeks. Alcantar's team is still optimizing and developing

the best system, but she envisions that each family would pass their water
through a filter that would periodically be recharged with fresh mucilage
from
prickly pear grown at home or in the community.
An advantage of the approach is that prickly pear is familiar to local
communities, which her work suggests will help ease its acceptance by local
people
in Temamatla, Mexico, where she is working with families to design and
_supply filters_ (http://science.howstuffworks.com/h2o4.htm) .
"Our survey showed that 97 percent of the community wanted to have a filter,
especially if it's based on something that they know and are accustomed to,"
said Alcantar
"There are a number of aspects to this project that I think are unique,"
said Angela Lindner of the University of Florida in Gainesville. "She knows
these communities so she understands the social aspects that are involved.
She's
keeping in mind that the one who is going to be making these filters is
going
to be the person who is drinking the water. That's rarely done in
engineering design."

____________________________________
Related Links:
_How Stuff Works: Water Purification_
(http://science.howstuffworks.com/h2o4.htm)
_Discovery Earth Game_
(http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/game/game.html)
_Planet Green_ (http://planetgreen.discovery.com/)



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