Guar is an important source of nutrition to animals and humans and is consumed as a vegetable and cattle feed.
Apart from being consumed as feed for animals or vegetable for human consumption, it is used as thickener in cosmetics, sauces and salad dressings.
Industrially it is used in mining, petroleum drilling and textile manufacturing.
The guar or Lond bean, with the botanical name Cyamopsis tetragonoloba, is an annual legume and the source of guar gum. It is also known as gavar, gawar, or guvar bean.
Guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.) is an erect, bushy annual herbaceous legume up to 3 m high, with trifoliate leaves up to 10 cm long, and white or rose coloured flowers. The pods are straight, hairy, pale green, up to 12 cm long and contain 5 to 12 hard seeds (beans) each.
Guar is a multi-purpose plant, mostly used today as a source of galactomannan gum, which is used as a thickener and stabilizer in foods such as salad dressings, ice cream and yoghurt. The gum and the water-soluble resin extracted from the seeds are also used in other industries, including paper manufacturing, cosmetics, mining and oil drilling.