America Natural Ingredients adopted Nopal/Prickly Pear through the American Botanical Council’s Adopt-an-Herb botanical research and education program.
 
Opuntia ficus-indica is in the cactus family (Cactaceae) and likely originated in Mexico.
 
Nopal (plural: nopales, nopalitos) is the Spanish name for the edible pads, or modified stems of the plant (called cladodes in botany).
 
Clinical trials have associated prickly pear consumption with reductions in blood sugar levels, beneficial inflammatorty modulations, lower cholesterol, and other potential benefits.
 
Nopales have been popular in Mexican, New Mexican, and Tejano and Tex-Mex cuisine for generations.
 
“If you knew the right restaurants that cooked traditional Mexican food, not the typical Tex-Mex found in chain restaurants but the small, out-of-the-way places, they would offer nopalitos con huevos (scrambled eggs with nopales), a typical Mexican dish,” said Mark Blumenthal, ABC founder and executive director, who was raised in El Paso, Texas.
 
Prickly pear refers to the purple seed-filled fruit, or tuna, which is covered with tiny, prickly hairs, known in botany as glochids. Tunas are eaten raw, without the tough skin and despite the many tiny seeds, made into drinks called agua fresca or agua de tuna, or cooked to make syrups, jellies, jams, and candy.
 
Opuntia ficus-indica is self-fertile and can reproduce when other plants of its species are not close by. The plant also hybridizes easily, and many cultivars can be found throughout semi-arid regions of the world. Some are almost spineless and with less pronounced glochids than the wild species, making it a viable addition to the home garden.
 
“We at America Natural Ingredients recognize that the benefits of nopal are not well known and we hope to change that so that nopal will be used more in dietary supplements,” said Francisco Zúñiga, director of ANI. “In partnering with nopal farmers, we hope that we can improve their lives and generate pride in our common objective to spread knowledge of the benefits of nopal.”
 
ANI’s nopal adoption supports ABC’s extensive HerbMedPro database, ensuring that this unique research and educational resource remains up to date for researchers, health professionals, industry members, students, consumers, and other members of the herbal and dietary supplement and natural medicine communities.
HerbMedPro is an online database that provides access to scientific and clinical research data on the uses and health effects of more than 265 herbs, spices, medicinal plants, and fungi.
 
“On behalf of all of us here at ABC, I am deeply grateful for ANI‘s adoption of nopal on ABC’s robust HerbMedPro database,” said Blumenthal. “I grew up on the Mexican and New Mexican borders, in the Chihuahuan Desert. Out there nopal, or prickly pear, was a commonly found plant that we would find on our frequent hikes into the mountains and arroyos. Nopal was almost everywhere in the hot dry, high desert environment.”