The cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) is a tropical evergreen. Native to north-eastern Brazil, the tree is now widely grown in tropical regions. Regular cashew trees can grow up to fourteen metres; dwarf cashew trees don’t surpass six metres. These dwarf trees have proven to be more profitable for growing nuts than the larger variation, due to their earlier maturity and higher yields.

The cashew tree grows cashew apples. These sweet, soft-flesh, yellow or red fruits grow to up to ten centimetres in length. While these apples appear to be the trees fruits, the actual fruits grow beneath the apples: the cashew nuts. This makes the cashew nut technically a seed, rather than a nut. Within its shell, a caustic liquid surrounds the cashew. This makes shelling them quite a challenge.

Cashew nuts are a popular snack and are widely used in recipes, especially in Southeast Asian cuisines. Being seeds, cashew nuts contain about ten per cent starch, which makes them suitable for thickening soups of meat stews. Also, again due to not being a nut in the biological sense, cashew nuts are less of an allergen than most nuts.

Cashews have a far lower fat content than most nuts. The fat they do contain consists of 82 per cent of unsaturated fat, which makes the heart-healthy. When added to a low-fat diet, cashews are a good choice for diabetics.