# Hoodia



## TimV (Oct 30, 2009)

For everyone's Friday treat, the celebrated Hoodia. For a while, you couldn't turn on a computer without seeing Hoodia offered as an appetite suppressant. They're not at all common in the wild, and the amount made into pills started scaring people concerned about conservation, so it isn't harvested as much anymore. The one in the picture has been growing for me for about 5 years, and it was probably 3 or 4 years old when I got it, so you can imagine how long it would take to replenish themselves after over harvesting.

I planted them around the packing shed at the farm I managed in South Africa, since they look so cool, and you don't have to water them much, but the locals don't eat them for appetite suppression. They eat them for a hangover cure, and every Monday the planting was reduced so much that I ended up giving up. Seriously. So without further ado, the famous Hoodia


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## LawrenceU (Oct 30, 2009)

Very cool. Does the hang over cure work? If so, I could make a fortune growing them and driving around construction sites on Monday mornings.


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## Zenas (Oct 30, 2009)

I love these posts.


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## jwithnell (Oct 30, 2009)

Ya never know what you're going to learn on the old PB!


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## he beholds (Oct 30, 2009)

I also love these posts! And the ones you do on FB, but those don't show up as much on my home page lately...are you still there???

What is your opinion about the appetite suppression aspect? Is there one?
And why does it seem to cure hangovers? Would it cure regular old non-morning-person-ness that is completely unrelated to alcohol consumption?


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## TimV (Oct 30, 2009)

Thanks, all!

I tried one once, but it was so bitter I couldn't eat it. But if you think about things like aspirin coming from bark, digitalis coming from a flower, quinine coming from bark (on and on for a couple pages) then who knows but that a morning sickness cure is out there somewhere. A Hottentot woman told me about a root that makes kidney conditions tolerable, but I stupidly never spent the energy to get a sample of the plant.


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