As I mentioned, I'm in Riberalta Bolivia which is like the northern part
of the country in the Amazon rainforest. Now this area is not really a tourist
destination. There's not really a whole lot that happens here; but there is one
thing that this area is known for and that is this place is where Brazil nuts
come from. Yeah. Bolivia is the number-one producer of Brazil nuts and Riberalta is
the largest area in Bolivia that produces it. You may think Brazil nuts are
from Brazil. Brazil does produce Brazil nuts but they don't produce as much as
Bolivia does. Brazil has 40% of the production of Brazil nuts, Bolivia has
50%. So half of all the Brazil nuts that you eat come from Bolivia. That's quite a
lot the other 10% I think is Peru. The majority of the Bolivian
Brazil nuts are from this area right here. So I went to a factory. I went on a
tour just to like find out how you get from the tree to the nut that we eat. So
first let's start with the tree. The tree is gigantic. They are these huge huge trees
that just like tower over like buildings. I believe they can last as long as 500
years. In Brazil its actually illegal to cut down a Brazil nut tree. The fruit of
the Brazil nut tree is actually a nuisance because these things are like
really big and heavy and they can fall and can crack your windshield
or they can hit you in the head and kill you. So they're fairly dangerous
because they are falling from such a high height off that tree and come
barreling down towards the earth. This is a fruit, it is not a true nut
it's got a very hard outer shell and when you crack this
open the seeds are inside. the pod itself you see all over the
place here in Bolivia they make things out of it. I've seen ashtrays and
little bowls, little like pen holders and stuff like that. I think this is
probably where the stem attached and this is just the little hole in the
bottom and if you actually like look in there you can see some of the nuts in
there and you can like I even hear them in there
I think that these cracks here especially like around here you see
there's like a circular crack. I think that is so that the seeds can get dispersed
easily. I wanted to crack this pod open to show you the seeds inside but I
couldn't get into it. I wailed away at this thing for like ten minutes and it
just was not going to give. I think that maybe the one that I had dried out too
much, thankfully I happened by a Brazil nut factory that had a pod that was
already opened. These I was told contain about 20 seeds each
those seeds are removed by hand and then thrown into gigantic piles. The next step
is that those nuts are then fed into machines that dry them out
All these nuts go into these dryers here. And the finished product is right here.
so these are all be dried nuts like after they've been through the dryer and
they said that you can eat the fresh ones before they're dried out but they
dry it out so it doesn't get any mold or bacteria in it. But its just amazing these are like
giant mountains of of nuts each one of the shelves is removed with one of these
medieval torture devices if you really really like Brazil nuts but you hate how
difficult it is to crack them open then this is the Nutcracker for you of course
if you wanted to shell an entire mountains worth of Brazil nuts you would
need more than just a little help this is the nut cracking room
this is all done by hand
This is unbelievable to look at. Oh my god
There's just like hundreds of people manually cracking nuts one by one
You just crack it and put the shell in there and then the good nuts go in the bucket there.
pretty simple
This girl here just got yelled at for using her smartphone on the job
the amazing
all the shells here are getting thrown into the furnace here
He's just disposing of all the nut shells
They are sorting the nuts here and getting rid of all the bad ones
they're going through looking for any imperfections
Oh so that one has a worm in it. So if there is a worm it in it goes into the bucket.
Some pretty good odds there.. there are only a few bad ones in the whole lot and they work very fast
she's actually going through the buck of bad ones and cutting out the bad part
that's why there's nothing in that bucket
she's cutting the ones that have a worm and cutting the worm out of them
Interesting. Nothing goes to waste.
So when they go down this belt, the tiniest ones fall through the small holes.
then the holes get larger so that they are getting separated out my size
And only the biggest ones go in this bucket here. These are like the alpha male nuts right here.
These are the top of the top.
this is a very warm room where they're dehydrating the nuts again
They dry the shell nuts and then they separate them and dry the shelled nuts
This one is completely ready. That is really good! It's still warm too and
like so much flavor these are the best Brazil nuts I've ever had. they're nutty
they're creamy, they're buttery. they taste a little bit like macadamia nuts
they've got a nice nuttiness. Oh thats so good. I'm not like a huge fan of Brazil nuts but
if they all tasted like this I'd be eating them constantly. That's really
really tasty
Giant wholesale sized boxes. Midget?
Yeah... you're using a politically incorrect word for it... but that is okay.
They're packed up and sealed with this machine here and sent off
They're packing up the boxes here and then they are separated out into size.
This is tiny
thesee I think our the next step up and they go on from there
a little labyrinth of nut boxes here. medium and large. There's four sizes of nuts.
Alright, back to the outside world.
And that my friends is where Brazil nuts come from
I really hope that you enjoyed this rare glimpse into how the largest
kernel of deliciousness ends up inside your can of mixed nuts thanks for
watching
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