Manga or Mango

Before I add the second food I eat this season, I would like to repeat that all these food need to be as fresh as possible for your own benefit. So, please if you can, plant them. You are better off if they are in your garden!

Also, one other thing, please do not be lazy to find out what are the fruits and vegetables in season if you need to buy them in the market. 

I keep a diary of when they are at their best and try to only eat those in season because, they are better for your health and they are in abundance therefore cheaper. 

I eat lots of mangoes. I have mango trees in my garden and they produce far too much mangoes than I ever need in a day. Once again, there are so many ways of eating mangoes but the freshest is the best.

This is what I do:

• I smell the mango off the tree
• I peel and clean my face with its peel
• I then make fresh juice and drink it all day
• I also make chutney, sauce and eat it as it is

I believe, this is one of the secrets of my clear skin. You can find out more about its nutritional values.

I also love making green mango salad which is one of my favourite salad dish.

Watch the video on how to cook it!

Here is what I found on the net on how to cook my favourite sweet potato leaves dish. My choice would be fresh tomatoes not in tins and leaves only without the stems please!
Watch the video here.

Sweet potato leaves, ravim-bomanga

Here is another type of sweet potato leaves. You can find out on the net everything about the plant and all its nutritional values if you wish but I would like to just give you few examples of how I would eat them.

• Eat them raw as if they were for salads.
• Quickly boil them in water to get a sort of clear soup (ro).
• Stir fry them with onions and garlic.
• My favourite one is cooked with patsa mena or dried dwarf red shrimp. This is a typical malagasy dish eaten with rice.

My main purpose here is not to give you recipes but to rather encourage you to incorporate them in your daily food. Plant some, eat them fresh from your garden as often as you can and let me know how you are doing! It is fully packed with good nutrition and you cannot go wrong.

One kind of leaf

Ravimbomanga, sweet potato leaves

I realize that some you might not even know that we can also eat the leaves of sweet potato! Not only it is a power pack nutrition but it is delicious raw or cooked and on top of that, it is a beautiful climbing plant!

Sweet potatoes, Vomanga

Start with sweet potatoes. There are different kinds. You learn to distinguish them by the shape of their leaves and their colours. These are freshly dug out of my flower garden yesterday! They are of the pink sweet potato kind, full of nutrition and good values as far as food price is concerned. I only planted 1 stem and I got 3kg of sweet potatoes. Meanwhile, I have been eating the leaves all year around. Surprise surprise, I was not sick once in 2012 and I saved a bit of money both on medicines and on vegetarian meals! You can plant your food and eat it fresh. It is a joy to be able to learn all about it on the net these days! Feel free to share your thoughts and experience with us!

Happy New Year 2013 everybody!

Wishing you all the best for this new year and above all, good eating habits, health and happiness!

Why Zen Food?
Well, for those of you who are not familiar with my work, I would like to say few words to introduce myself.
My name is Hanitra, I am an artist from Madagascar. My work and life style involve a lot of travelling and moving from one country to another. In other words, busy. You can find out a little bit more on my website when it is finally running here.

Very often, I come off stage, people ask me what do I eat to keep fit and dance for hours while singing, playing and then travelling, often missing meals and lacking sleep, then find my home, my family and dogs and taking care of them!

Well, I've never asked myself that question before but not long ago someone stopped me in the street to ask about the secret of my clear complexion so I thought I'd create Zen Food blog to try to answer to some of these questions.

It's time for a new resolution, something else to try since it's new year, we can all make our life a bit better so be my guest.
I will post as I travel! Follow me, you will find me through my food. Please interact, give suggestions or comments, you are most welcome!