Mango – tropical Vitaminbombe
While mangoes used to be an exotic rarity, these sweet tropical fruits are now available in every supermarket all year round. With their bright colors and juicy flesh, mangoes not only enrich smoothies and desserts, but are also used in cooking – for example in mango chutney or as an ingredient in a Thai curry. But the health value of the mango fruit is also impressive: mangoes are rich in beta-carotene and other important vitamins. In your country of origin, India, numerous healing effects are even ascribed to the fruits.
Calories and Nutritional Value of Mango
A ripe mango tastes deliciously sweet, so it’s hardly surprising that its flesh is relatively high in sugar. For this reason, tropical fruits are not suitable for losing weight. In terms of calories, 100 grams of the pulp has almost 60 kilocalories (kcal).
In addition, 100 grams of a fresh mango have the following nutritional values:
- 0.4 grams of fat
- 0.6 grams of protein
- 12.8 grams of carbohydrates (of which 12.5 grams of sugar)
- 1.7 grams of fiber
Mangoes are made up of more than 80 percent water. The water has been removed from the dried mango, the remaining ingredients are correspondingly more concentrated. Therefore, dried mango has a proud 290 kilocalories and 62 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams – 60 grams of which are sugar.
Mango – rich in healthy ingredients
Despite their high sugar content, mangoes are very healthy. They owe their high health value primarily to their vitamin content. Because mangoes are full of vitamin C , vitamin E and B vitamins, such as vitamin B1 and folic acid . Among other things, these vitamins are valuable for the immune system and help to protect the cells from the negative effects of stress.
However, mangoes are particularly rich in beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A. This vitamin not only plays an important role in cell renewal in the skin and the immune system , but is also required for the visual process – this can lead to a lack of vitamin A lead to night blindness. With three grams of beta-carotene per 100 grams of flesh, mangoes are among the most carotene-rich fruits.
In addition to vitamins, mangoes also provide important minerals such as potassium , magnesium and calcium.
Health effects of the mango
Mangoes are a popular ingredient in baby food due to their low acidity. They are also very easy to digest and can even have a slightly laxative and draining effect. They are also said to boost the metabolism , stimulate the appetite and prevent infections and colds . Mangoes are also said to have a positive effect on the heart and brain.
But not only the fruit, but also the components of the mango trees are attributed a healing effect in India:
- Due to their tannins, the flowers are used, among other things, to treat diarrhea and bladder infections .
- Thanks to its active ingredient mangiferin, the bark is used to treat rheumatism and diphtheria. In ground form, it is used to strengthen the stomach, as a remedy for a toothache, and even to stop internal bleeding.
- Gargling with a decoction of leaves and branches of the tree is said to care for the teeth and gums.
- When used externally, the mango tree sap is said to alleviate skin fungal diseases.
Beware of allergies
Caution is advised if you are allergic to cashew nuts or pistachios: from a botanical point of view, mangoes are related to the two stone fruits because they belong to the same plant family.
Eating mango can also lead to a cross-allergy with birch pollen or mugwort. The peel plays a particularly important role here, as it contains the most allergens.
Tips for buying the mango fruit
As the season of mangoes differs depending on the country of origin, mangoes are usually available all year round. There are many different types of mango, differing in shape, colour, size, texture of the flesh and taste. For this reason, the color of the peel says nothing about the ripeness of the fruit.
Nevertheless, it is easy to tell whether a mango fruit is ripe: shortly before ripening, mangoes give off a typical sweet smell and give slightly when gently squeezed. When a mango is fully ripe, small black dots appear on the skin.
When shopping, it can be worth spending more money because good quality mangoes come at a price. While the fruits are fibrous at some discounters and taste rather bland, delicatessen retailers often have high-quality “flying mangoes” that are imported by plane and can therefore ripen longer on the tree.
Shelf life and storage of mangoes
A ripe mango should be eaten within two days before it becomes too soft and begins to ferment. If you want to buy mangoes in advance, you should therefore reach for hard, unripe fruits. These can be ripened at home at room temperature.
If you want to speed up the ripening process, you can wrap the fruit in newspaper or place it next to an apple. However, storage in the refrigerator does not extend the shelf life of the mango, but damages the fruit: At temperatures below 8 °C, the flesh loses its taste.
Processing: Peel and cut the mango
Although you can eat the skin of a mango with some varieties – this is often common in their countries of origin – many people simply don’t like it. If you want to enjoy the juicy pulp, you usually have to free the mango from its skin and remove the stuck stone.
The best way to do this is to peel the mango after washing it with a vegetable peeler and cut it lengthwise with two parallel cuts on each side of the stone. Then the meat of the center piece is cut from the core and the pieces are chopped into strips or cubes, depending on the recipe.
If the fruit is a bit riper, you can simply cut through the unpeeled mango as described above and then either spoon it out or conjure up a “mango hedgehog” . To do this, score the meat in the two large pieces crosswise until just before the shell, creating a grid pattern. If you then turn the mango half inside out, the mango pieces are easy to eat.
Use of mangoes – not only in the kitchen
Mangoes are used in many ways in the kitchen. For example, the fruit is suitable for the following uses:
- in hearty dishes (especially in Indian cuisine), for example tandoori chicken, coconut curry or as mango chutney with grilled dishes
- in a salad, for example with rocket or chicory
- in sweet desserts such as sorbet, ice cream, fruit salad or cakes
- preserved as jam or compote
- dried as a snack or in muesli
- in drinks, for example as juice or nectar, in cocktails, shakes, lassi or smoothies
However, the flesh is not all that a mango has to offer. Mango seed oil or mango seed butter is obtained from the seeds of the dried fruit . Like cocoa butter, this vegetable oil is used to make chocolate or margarine, for example.
However, the oil is not only suitable for eating: Due to its moisturizing and regenerating effect, mango seed oil is also used in cosmetics such as shampoo, lip balm, soaps and creams. It is also used in medicinal ointments and creams.
Characteristics of the mango fruit
The mango originally comes from India, where mango cultivation has a long history. To this day, India is the main export country for stone fruits. But the mango, also known as the “jelly”, is also cultivated in many other countries, for example in Thailand or Spain.
Hierzulande sind nur wenige der ungefähr 1.000 Mangosorten erhältlich, die man in ihrem Heimatland kennt. Je nach Sorte ist die Mangofrucht rund, oval, herz- oder nierenförmig. Ihre feste Schale kann gelb, grün oder rot sein – das Fruchtfleisch ist häufig gelb oder orange. Abhängig von der Sorte und dem Reifegrad ist das Fleisch fest oder weich, faserig oder frei von Fasern. In der Regel ist es süß und saftig, hin und wieder leicht sauer – manche Leute erinnert der Geschmack an Pfirsich.
Inside the mango there is a flat, mostly fixed core, which in older varieties is surrounded by an inedible fibrous shell. In newer breeds, this shell has often disappeared. Incidentally, with a little skill, hobby gardeners can grow their own mango tree from the core of the mango – even if this is unlikely to bear any mango fruit in the local climate.
