Cactus use

In the Mexican desert zones and other next areas, natives and thirsty travelers know big globular cactus like Echinocactus and Ferocactus which provide them with the necessary liquid. This liquid can be obtained cutting the upper part of the plant and macerating the pulp of the interior of the plant. Nevertheless the liquid it is not tasty and its consumption is understood by the conditions in which they are who take advantage of it.
Also cattle uses this liquid to calm thirst.
In the zones in which they lack completely you hoist them, and therefore the wood, resorts to the dry stems of Cereus to replace, with much less effectiveness, planks and trunks for the construction of cabins or refuges

Carnegiea gigantea specimen prepared for construction

In places with no grass, segments of Opuntia free of glochids are used as forage. On the other hand, the younger articles in which glochids are cleaned up easily called "nopalitos", in Mexico are eat fried and in Texas boiled. This last method often was used by navigators of XVII and XVIII centuries to avoid some diseases, since segments kept fresh for a long time, and constituted a replacement of vegetables, which were impossible to conserve.
The fruits of Opuntia ficus-indica, "higos chumbos", are known widely. Nevertheless, even when producing the sweetest fruit of cactus, the "chumbera" is not the only cactus with edible fruit. Other species of Opuntia, like Opuntia tuna, streptacantha and cardona, are also usually cultivated with this same purpose.

"Higos chumbos" in an Opuntia ficus-indica specimen

In their territories of origin, native populations consume the fruits of different Cereus species and Hylocereus undatus. The bluish berries of Myrtillocactus geometrizans are sold in Mexican markets with the name of "garambullos". The fruits of Carnegiea gigantea are also considered of excellent quality.
The stems of Selenicereus grandiflorus and other species contains a glucosid which, in extract form or tinctures, constitutes a diuretic and also have cardiac properties.
One of the most known cactus, since remote times by its use as hallucinogen, is peyote (Lophophora williamsii). It is a plant original of America, where the rituals of Mexican natives had spread it in great way when the arrival of the spanish discoverers took place. At that time, for religious, social and political reasons, there was tried to suppress its consumption but it cannot be done. In the following centuries it spread among the North American tribes, and in XIX century, the Native American Church appeared and the members of this institution are the one who can consume legally peyote like sacrament nowadays , since the North American federal laws prohibit their consumption and even their possession. In other words, in the United States it is illegal to have a plant of Lophophora williamsii in a cactus collection.