Mesquite flour is made from the dried and ground pods of the Mesquite

Mesquite

Mesquite is a leguminous plant of the Prosopis genus found in northern Mexico through the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan Deserts, and up into the Southwestern United States as far north as southern Kansas, west to the Colorado Desert in California,and east to the eastern fifth of Texas, where...

. The tree grows throughout North America in arid climates. The flour made from the long, beige-colored seed pods has a sweet, slightly nutty flavor and can be used in a wide variety of applications. It has a high-protein, low-glycemic content and could serve as a more healthy gluten-free replacement for flours. In the past Indigenous American Indians used to rely on these mesquite pods as an important food source. The bean pods of the mesquite tree are dried and ground into a flour (pinole). This flour is rich in dietary fiber

Dietary fiber

Dietary fiber, dietary fibre, or sometimes roughage is the indigestible portion of plant foods having two main components:* soluble fiber that is readily fermented in the colon into gases and physiologically active byproducts, and* insoluble fiber that is metabolically inert, absorbing water as it...

(25%) and protein (13%). It also contains significant quantities of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, zinc and the amino acid lysine, and it's low-fat (only 3%).

Sources

• http://medplant.nmsu.edu/mesquite4.shtm
• http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/st-plains/nature/images/mesquite.html