Why are Indian women paying the price for vegans all over the world (9 photos)

Those who choose a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle must include cashew nuts in their diet as a valuable source of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins A, B2, B1 and microelements. And this despite the rather high cost of this nut!





European and, in particular, British vegans and vegetarians eat the most cashews - about 17,000 tons per year! This is a huge figure even on a single country scale. But where do such impressive quantities of cashews come from to satisfy the appetites of vegetarians and vegans around the world?



Cashew

From the title of today's material it is not difficult to guess that most of the cashews are purchased in India, as well as in Brazil and Vietnam. Moreover, the nut is brought to Europe already peeled, but women are engaged in getting rid of the shell, and they do it manually, helping themselves only with a small but very sharp knife.





Indian women peeling cashews

In India alone, about 500 thousand people of various ages - from 10 to 50 years old - are engaged in cashew processing. For a kilogram of shelled cashews, Indian women earn on average about $2 a day.



Indian women peeling cashews

It all depends on the speed of their work, and therefore on the volume of peeled nuts. The fastest way to remove the shell from cashews is with your bare hands, but with protective gloves this process takes much longer. Therefore, Indian women are increasingly neglecting gloves and peeling cashews with bare hands. But in vain...



Indian women peeling cashews

The fact is that cashew shells contain anacardic acid and cardol - substances that, when they come into contact with the skin, cause irritation, burns and blisters. Of course, the concentration of these substances in cashew peels is minimal, but when they are exposed to the skin almost continuously, for 8-10 hours every day, wounds inevitably appear on it, which sometimes take weeks to heal.



Indian women's wounds

Of course, Indian women cannot afford such a long “vacation”, so they continue to work and only aggravate the condition of the wounds on their hands, preventing them from healing. The worst thing is when substances from the cashew shell get under the nails, because if you fail to wash them in time, then an infection begins, which only a doctor can cope with, and his services are too expensive for most Indians.



Indian women's wounds

Well, in addition to burns from cashew shells, Indian women often receive serious cuts from knives used to open the dense shell of the nut. By the way, many women would be happy to work with gloves to avoid injury, but they significantly reduce the speed of cleaning cashews.



Hands of a cashew peeler

And those workers who cannot cope with the pace of production are deprived of the opportunity to protect their hands - as a punishment, so to speak... So it turns out to be a kind of vicious circle. But nothing can be done about this, since the demand for cashews is constantly increasing, and Indian women have to sacrifice their health in order to keep their jobs, because competitors from Brazil and Vietnam are also not asleep...



Indian women peeling cashews