If you believe the local marketing pitches, Argan oil is the miracle cure for all that ails you. There probably is truth to some of the hype, so for today’s Pic of the Day I thought we would visit an Argan oil cooperative located in a small village in the Atlas mountains. It was my first introduction to what turns out to be fairly plentiful cooperatives around the country, which I think are an asset to their communities. This particular cooperative was run by women from the village who contribute their labor and earn some money for their families. Such communities often are quite poor, so this is a huge benefit to them.
Argan trees are native to Morocco and Algeria, and they produce a commercially useful nut. The nuts are harvested, their shells removed (see top photo of this blog).
They are then roasted….
And crushed in a crude-looking tool which separates the oil from the rest of the nut, leaving behind a rather thick paste similar to peanut butter.
After a demonstration of the process of extracting Argan oil, we were free to browse the cooperative store. It was a rather attractive space with all kinds of goodies, especially those involving cosmetics.
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