You love cashew ? Do you know this dry fruit is a fruit of a poison ivy ?

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Our beloved sweet nuts are not always sweet and tasty, if you know about them you'll feel fear, for at least some of them, to put them inside your mouth. Cashew is most sweet, tasty and mostly used nut in all nuts. It makes food more tasty and we use cashew in almost every food, be it a spicy or sweet dish, every dish became more rich in taste when you put some piece of cashew in it.

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But what if you know that this dry fruit is fruit of a poison tree ? We all love to eat cashew nut, bet it salted, roasted or in a food item, we love to eat raw nut also, but most of us don't know one bizarre fact that our favorite cashew is a fruit of a poison ivy. The cashews are a favorite for many people but don't feel panic, cashews came in market after fully processed.

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Actually cashew tree is a tropical evergreen tree, its botanical name is Anacardium occidentale which is belongs to family of poison ivy and poison sumac and like its other family member the cashew plant also inherits powerful chemical irritants known as anacardic acids which is very harmful for us. Cashew trees produces two things, cashew seed and the cashew apple, cashew seeds are our favorite, we eat those as cashew nuts.

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If you touched cashew shells or by any chance eat unprocessed raw cashews it will cause itchy skin reaction in you. The cashew seed which known as cashew nut appeared in tree with double shell that surrounded it, this shell is actually contains an allergeniic phenolic resin, anacardic acid which is known also as toxic allergic oil urushiol, which is found in the related poison ivy, this discovery proves cashew tree as a poison ivy family member. This is the reason why cashews are not sold with shells and roasted nut at high temperature destroys the shell oil, so roasted cashew nuts will not trigger a reaction, it's safe and tasty too.