The seeds of the Carob Tree, all being the same size, are used as weights in eastern Mediterranean countries (the word "carat" comes from the Arabic name of the seeds). So the modern word carat owes its derivation to the same pathway that named the Carob, which was originally used by Arab jewelers to weigh their precious metals and stones! Carob is cultivated for its abundance of pods, rich in sugar when ripe, which are used for the production of alcohol or ground with the seeds to make carob bean meal for animal feed.