social good

Good for you

Maya is good for your gut flora, which is extremely important to your overall well-being. Your gut bacteria are responsible for the critical functions of the body’s digestive and immune systems, and  are largely responsible for your body’s vitamin and mineral absorbency, hormone regulation, digestion, vitamin production, immune response, and ability to eliminate toxins, not to mention your overall mental health. 95% of our serotonin and 50% of our dopamine are produced by gut bacteria. This is why you feel so cranky when your gut is out of whack! Maya helps your gut flora because it is high in prebiotic fiber (https://www.prebiotin.com/prebiotics/prebiotics-vs-probiotics/ ) which feeds your flora and helps them thrive. 

Maya is also very high in Calcium, Potassium and Magnesium, these help with muscle recovery after workouts and with bone building and maintenance for pregnant women, athletes, the elderly and anyone with arthritis or skeletal injuries. Maya is high in Tryptophan, an essential amino acid which is converted to Serotonin in the brain. This is why Maya is such a relaxing and calming food. This also makes it wonderful for vegans and vegetarians who tend to have trouble getting enough tryptophan from their plant-based diet.

Good for people

Maya production and sales provide dignified and safe jobs and income for rural and indigenous women. Most of our producers have never had a job before. They are from the poorest, most remote communities in Central America and are some of the most hardworking, honest and deserving people we have ever met. We are happy to be able to partner with these women, to provide benefits to them and to you! Maya producers earn income from Maya sales, we always pay a fair price for their product and the money they earn is spent on the family, their children, food and medicine. Some producers have doubled and even tripled the family income through Maya production! Many of our producers tell us that recently, due to a bad drought in Central America, they are now the primary breadwinners for the family and that without their income from Maya sales, the family would be extremely vulnerable to hunger and other poverty-related trauma.

Good for forests

Maya production and sales creates value for the wild Maya forests in Central America and Mexico. By adding value to forests, our products create powerful incentives for people to protect and restore them.  Maya production is done sustainably and we teach our producers how to inventory their forests, establish and respect harvest quotas, and how to monitor the health of their forests. The training and education we provide is fun for the producers and empowers them to protect their forests. 
Maya seeds are hand collected from the forest floor and are carried on foot or horseback to the women’s homes where they wash them and dry them in the sun.  Occasionally we use gas or electric dryers to dry the seed, but only on the rare occasion when it is too rainy to sun dry the seed. Our commitment to using natural solar power is what helps keep our product’s carbon footprint low, reducing our contribution to climate change.

supporting the Maya nut institute

When you purchase Maya products you are directly supporting rural women and their families.  This is because we are committed to ensuring that our producers earn a fair living wage for their work and that they are able to support their families with their earnings. We bring our products to market directly because by eliminating the “middleman” we are able to pay our producers more and still run a successful business.  Because we are a non-profit organization, all profits from the sale of Maya products are reinvested in our programs. These include continuing education for women producers, reforestation and Maya school lunch programs in the communities where we work.  To date we and our partners have planted 185,000 Maya trees in Haiti, 600,000 in Guatemala, 25,000 in El Salvador, 150,000 in Nicaragua, 85,000 in Peru, 50,000 in Honduras and 300,000 in Mexico.

You can also make donations directly to the Maya Nut Institute!