A short memo on Guar (or Cluster Bean)

By Amin Osman

(13 October 2021)

 

Guar (Tamil Nadu, India).
Credit: By த*உழவன் - Own work,
Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7924074

 

Guar, cymoposis tetragonoloba, is known as Cluster Bean is well known mainly in North India and Pakistan and grows extensively in the semi arid regions. It is used a vegetable, green manure, etc. and for the production of seeds from which the guar gum is extracted. The plant resembles an upright garden bean but grows upright to some one metre high.

The tender seedpods are used as a vegetable, the mature plants are used as fodder and green manure. The seeds extracted from the dry seedpods industrially are used to extract a well known gum, oil, etc.

The guar gum is used mainly in the following food industries: ice cream,yogurt, salad dressing and also in the pharmaceutical industry and is used to control diarrhea, obesity, cholesterol, etc. The crop cycle varies from 60 to 90 days, the bean is 3 to 10 cm, height of the mature plant is about one metre. It is an annual legume.

These are some notes compiled from the internet after a hint from my youngest daughter who met a British Lord of Pakistani origin, Aamer Sarfraz, at a lunch in London lately in company of her husband and her eldest daughter who is studying at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University (UK). He is a most succesful businessman trading in guar.