Zoubida Charrouf
Professor, Science Faculty of Mohamed V. University
Solving Pieces of the Argan Puzzle: Researcher Profile, Zoubida Charrouf"I didn’t know that I bothered people ... well, I knew that I did, but I didn’t know quite how much." Zoubida Charrouf, Professor in the Science Faculty of Mohamed V. University, in Rabat, Morocco is quietly trying to explain some of the hurdles she faces. "People reproach me three things. They reproach me for having helped women get out of the house. They reproach me for having improved the extraction of argan oil. And they reproach me for being interested in a tree that belongs to ordinary people, not to academics."
Those three elements – women’s emancipation, the products of the argan tree, and the conservation of an indigenous species – are inextricably linked in Dr Charrouf’s work. Without doubt, she is the argan’s greatest champion. Unique to the poor, arid south-west of Morocco, the thorny argan is a precious resource. Every part of the tree is useable: the wood is used for fuel, the leaves and fruit provide forage for goats, and the oil extracted from the almonds is used in cooking and traditional medicine. More important perhaps, it is the region’s last bulwark against the advance of the desert.
The argan is all the more precious for the women of the villages of Tamanar and Tidzi where Dr Charrouf has brought to bear more than 15 years of research to establish the country’s first-ever
argan oil processing cooperatives. They are all the more remarkable because they are run entirely by local women.
Changing women’s lives
If the argan and its potential fascinate Dr Charrouf, she is also driven by the desire to improve women’s lives. "You can already feel it," she says, "these women are not the same as before." If you ask them what they like most about the cooperative, the answer is unambiguous and unanimous: 'We have gotten out of of the house.' "Together they share their problems, their laughter, she adds. And because they are together, the project can offer training in literacy, marketing, quality control, and other subjects.
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| goat feeding in oil argan tree |
Morocco's little-known argan oil is poised to be the next big thing in beauty products, but don't tell anyone that it was once extracted from goat droppings.
No one is trying to hide the goats' traditional role in producing argan oil. But in this roadside shop outside of the coastal Moroccan town, the women aren’t exactly eager to dwell on goat-related matters, either.
The artisans here are producing and selling argan oil, an increasingly trendy cure-all skin treatment. It is an amber-colored liquid that also livens up salads and tastes great in stews. The last thing they want is a customer thinking that their exquisite product passed through a goat's digestive tract and exited through its rear end.
“All the work now is done by hand,” said Naima Elattaoui, 28, as she showed visitors around the Tiguemine Argan Cooperative, where 25 of her colleagues spend their days making argan oil in a stone courtyard just a few miles from Morrocco’s balmy Atlantic coast.
That’s by hand, Elattaoui said, not hoof. Close to 90 percent of the argan oil made in Morocco gets exported, and the export product these days is by all accounts goat-free. Carefully, with tenses rigorously confined to the past, Elattaoui will say this:
It used to be that goats would climb up into the gnarled trees dotting the nearby hills. It once was the case that they ate the pecan-sized argan nuts, digesting the soft outer peel. Previously, the animals defecated the now-peeled nuts onto the ground. In the past, the local women followed behind, gathering kernels to crack, roast and grind into the highly sought-after, labor-intensive oil.
But that’s all over with, Elattaoui said, and people mostly do the peeling now. And it’s hard to blame her for insisting on this story. There’s business on the line.
Although argan oil has been prized here for centuries — rubbed on babies, brushed into hair and drizzled over couscous — the product has lately taken off abroad. Whether because of the oil’s distinctive, toasted flavor or its apparently restorative effect on skin, Moroccans say demand for argan oil has surged among foodies and cosmetic-sellers in America and Europe.
“It’s been a huge success,” said Zoubida Charrouf, a professor at Rabat’s Mohamed V University, who published chemical analyses of the Omega-6 and vitamin E–rich oil that helped spur foreign interest in argan. “Without international demand it wouldn’t have developed like this.”
Olio di Argan
Argania Spinosa, questo è il nome del frutto di un albero di 8 -10 metri, molto simile all’olivo che nasce nelle terre del deserto semiroccioso, in Marocco, tra Agadir e Essaouira; una vera delizia per il palato con il pane appena sfornato o nelle zuppe o nno per farne un elisir di bellezza e di benessere dalle eccellenti proprietà. Per fare un litro di questo olio sono necessari 100 chili di bacche e 20 ore di lavoro.
Da sempre l’Olio di Argan è stato utilizzato dal popolo berbero per massaggiare la pelle per difendersi dal vento, dal sole e dalla sabbia e anch per donare alla pelle elasticità, lucentezza e idratazione. Le sue proprietà nutrienti, emolienti e protettive, rigeneranti per la pelle, capelli fragili e opachi ne fanno oggi un olio molto ricercato e utilizzato. Questo olio, ricco di
vitamina E, ha proprietà anti-età e dona alla pelle luminosità e freschezza. Viene applicato a partire dai piedi, dopo essere stato riscaldato, per aumentare l’effetto detensivo sulla pelle e la muscolatura. L’altro elemento costituente è un
insaponificabile, cioè una sostanza che non si trasforma in sapone dopo aver idrolizzato l’olio con alcali. Quest’olio è uno dei più ricchi di acidi grassi insaturi (80% circa) che penetrano nei fosfolipidi di membrana, idratano e nutrono la pelle. Inoltre è stato dimostrato che l’olio di Argan possiede un’elevatissima percentuale di acidi grassi essenziali in particolare di acido linoleico, fondamentale per il riequilibrio della membrana cellulare e l’elasticità e morbidezza della pelle.
Oltre ad un utilizzo di tipo estetico, l’olio di Argan veniva e viene adoperato per “frizionare” i neonati e proteggerli dalle infezioni cutanee. In campo medico aiuta a limitare la comparsa di
acne giovanile, della varicella e dei reumatismi. Può essere anche ingerito con funzione anti-colestero. Da alcune ricerche risulta che tutte queste proprietà siano da ricondurre alla composizione chimica dell’olio di Argan, costituito in particolare da gliceridi, ossia esteri di acidi grassi e glicerina.
el cuscus, ma, ancor di più, un toccasana per la pelle e per i capelli. Da millenni le donne berbere lo raccolgo
e lo usano per proteggere la pelle e i capelli.
