As we have discovered, trees are awesome. But what’s awesomer than trees? Goats in trees.

Yes. One of the interesting trees I learned about while I was reading all about trees was the argan tree. Argan trees are found in Morocco. Morocco is a country in Africa, which is basically on the other side of the Earth from the US.

Argan fruit grows on argan trees, and it turns out goats are really fond of argan fruit. So much so that when the fruit is ripe, goats take to the trees to eat right off the branches, instead of patiently waiting for the fruit to fall to the ground.

They make very dedicated goats in Morocco.

But here’s a bonus fact: argan oil comes from the nut inside the fruit that the goats like to eat. It’s a very hard nut. At some point in the past, someone discovered that once the nut has been digested, it’s much easier to crack. This is a delicate way of saying that people used to collect the nuts out of the goat poop instead of straight from the tree because then it was much more crackable.

They make very dedicated argan oil harvesters in Morocco.

Nowadays, argan nuts are (supposedly) collected in a more hygienic way, though I must confess I couldn’t find any specifics about how they solved the hard nut problem, so who knows? And if you’re wondering what people use argan oil for – it’s recently been celebrated as a supernut of sorts, and is used as a “heart-healthy” oil for food and as an ingredient in very expensive skin and beauty products. All of this is to say that suddenly argan oil has become very popular.

So get to work, goats!
 

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