MACA - This herbal gift comes to us from the native people high in the Andes mountains of Peru, South America. It is used both as a food and a medicine. When you live at such great heights in a harsh and challenging environment, you look for anything you can to help you develop the stamina to survive. The herb Maca figures prominently in the ability to master this struggle. Maca is a hardy survivor of harsh growing conditions and makes its home at heights between 9,000 to 14,500 feet. This is an area where the direct rays of the sun can hit plants (and people) without having been filtered through a cloud first. Where Maca is at home, many people would be clawing for a decent breath of air when they just try to move around. Thin, rocky soils dominate the landscape and fierce winds with biting cold can whip up out of nowhere. No other cultivated plant grows as high up as Maca. Maca has the ability to survive here where other plants perish. Perhaps for this reason, the native peoples of Peru who live there, turned to this hardy member of the Nightshade Family of plants (familiar relatives are the potato, tomato, egg plant and tobacco) to find that it helps them survive as well. The Maca plant lies on the ground and looks a little like a flat-growing potato plant. It has ivory colored flowers and tubers (underground storage roots) resembling an upside down pear. This storage root is the part which is used after boiling it for five to six hours, to harness its positive properties. Maca