Uses of Mango Leaves, Seeds, and Bark.
The mango is the most popular fruit of the tropics and is called ‘The King of Asiatic fruits’. It is regarded as a valuable item of diet and a household remedy. The mango is a fleshy drupe, variable in size and shape, with varying mixtures of green, yellow, and red color.
The mango is indigenous to India. It has been cultivated here for over 4000 years. In Vedas, mango is praised as a heavenly fruit.
Ayurveda considers ripe mango sweet and heating. It balances all three doshas and acts as an energizer.
Green, unripe mango is also used in Indian cooking. Several varieties are specially cultivated for using raw. Green mango could be picked long before ripening while it is still hard. The fruit is grated and added to dhals and vegetables, or made into chutneys and pickles. The ayurvedic qualities of green mango are sour, astringent, and cooling. They should not be eaten alone or in large quantities because they can aggravate the doshas, especially Pitta dosha. However, prepared ayurvedically, in combination with spices, for example in a chutney, they help digestion and improve the flavor of food.
Diabetes:
The tender leaves of the mango tree are considered useful in diabetes. An infusion is prepared from fresh leaves by soaking them overnight in water and squeezing them well in water before filtering them in the morning. This infused water should be taken every morning to control early diabetes. As an alternative to infusion. Leaves can be dried in the shade, powdered, and preserved. Half a teaspoonful of this powder should be taken twice a day, in the morning and evening.
Diarrhea:
The mango seeds are valuable in diarrhea. The seeds should be collected during the mango season, dried in the shade, powdered, and stored for use as medicine. It should be given in doses of about one and a half grams to two grams with or without honey. Juice of fresh flowers when taken with one or two teaspoonfuls of curds, is also valuable in diarrhea.
Female Disorders:
Mango seeds are considered useful in certain disorders connected with women’s reproductive organs. A teaspoonful, of the paste of the decorticated kernel of mango, is applied inside the vagina to cure leucorrhoea, Vaginitis, and relaxed walls due to multiple pregnancies. Its use half an hour before conjugal union gives a virgin feeling and acts as a safe contraceptive. This has been tried many times with gratifying results.
Juice of the fresh mango bark is also valuable in heavy bleeding during menstruation, i.e. menorrhagia, leucorrhoea, mucus and pus discharges from the uterus, and bleeding or hemorrhages from the uterus. The juice is given with the addition of the white of an egg or some mucilage-a kind of vegetable glue obtained from plants and a little opium in these diseases. In the alternative, a mixture of 10 ml. of a fluid extract of the bark and 120 ml. of water is given in doses of a teaspoonful every hour or two.
Other Uses:
Seed kernels: After soaking and drying to 10% moisture content, the kernels are fed to poultry and cattle. Without the removal of tannins, the feeding value is low. Cuban scientists declare that the mineral levels are so low mineral supplementation is needed if the kernel is used for poultry feed, for which purpose it is recommended mainly because it has little crude fiber.
Seed fat: Having high stearic acid content, the fat is desirable for soap-making. The seed residue after fat extraction is usable for cattle feed and soil enrichment.
Bark: The bark possesses 16% to 20% tannin and has been employed for tanning hides. It yields a yellow dye, or, with turmeric and lime, a bright rose pink.
Gum: A somewhat resinous, red-brown gum from the trunk is used for mending crockery in tropical Africa. In India, it is sold as a substitute for gum Arabic.
Medicinal Uses: Dried mango flowers, containing 15% tannin, serve as astringents in cases of diarrhea, chronic dysentery, catarrh of the bladder, and chronic urethritis resulting from gonorrhea. The bark contains mangiferin and is astringent and employed against rheumatism and diphtheria in India. The resinous gum from the trunk is applied on cracks in the skin of the feet and on scabies and is believed helpful in cases of syphilis.
Mango kernel decoction and powder (not tannin-free) are used as vermifuges and as astringents in diarrhea, hemorrhages, and bleeding hemorrhoids. The fat is administered in cases of stomatitis. Extracts of unripe fruits and of bark, stems and leaves have shown antibiotic activity. In some of the islands of the Caribbean, leaf decoction is taken as a remedy for diarrhea, fever, chest complaints, diabetes, hypertension, and other ills. A combined decoction of mango and other leaves is taken after childbirth.”
The mango is considered the undisputed and uncrowned king of all fruits. Mango is found all over India and many regions of the world. Mango’s taste is sweet and a little sour and is very nourishing. Mango is mentioned in ancient scripts for its great nutritive value. Raw Mango is sour and stringent ripe Mango is extremely tasty and nutritive. According to Hakeem Hashmi, a reputed unani physician, a normal size Mango is more nourishing for the human body than butter or almonds. It strengthens and invigorates all the nerves tissues, and muscles in the brain, heart, and other parts of the body. It cleans the body of the filth within and is an ideal antidote for all toxic effects inside the body. Mango also provides sufficient resistance to fight any gems and afflictions. Every part of Mango tree root stems barks the blossoms; raw and ripe mangoes and seeds all have curative and medicinal properties.
Curative Properties of Mango:
Taking Mango pulp mixed in milk or drinking milk after eating Mango imparts energy, strength, and vigor to the body.
Drinking Mango juice regularly in the evening eliminates physician weakness and improves the nervous system.
Mental Weakness: Taking half cup of sweet Mango juice with 25 grams of curd. Ginger juice 2 or 3 times a day controls loose motions. Boil 20 grams of powder of Mango bark in a liter of water and reduce it to 250 grams. Taking this decoction with 1 gram of black salt cures diarrhea.
Dysentery: Taking half a teaspoon of the ground powder of Mango leaves dried in the shade with water 2 or 3 times a day stops dysentery.
Teeth Problems: Using the powder of dried Mango seeds as toothpaste, strengthens the gums and helps in curing dental problems and foul smell pyorrhoea.
Beauty Aids: Taking Mango regularly makes the complexion fair and the skin soft and shining.
Gall and Kidney Stones: Taking 10 grams, of finely ground powder of Mango leaves (dried in the shade) with water (kept in a glass tumbler overnight) daily helps in breaking the stones and throwing them out.
Diabetes: Taking Mango juice and Jamun juice in equal proportion is good for controlling diabetes.
Children’s Eating Soil: Feeding the powder of dried kernel of Mango seeds with fresh water cures the habit of eating soil in kinds.
Fever: Paste of Mango roots applied on palms and soles cure fever.
Fire Burns: Burnt ashes of Mango leaves, applied on the burnt parts give quick relief.
Dry Cough: Roast a ripe Mango on hot sand in a pan. Sucking the juice of this Mango eliminates all the bronchial congestion and gives relief to cough.
Food Uses of Mango:
Mangos should always be washed to remove any sap residue, before handling. Some seedling mangos are so fibrous that they cannot be sliced; instead, they are massaged, the stem end is cut off, and the juice is squeezed from the fruit into the mouth. Non-fibrous mangos may be cut in half to the stone, the two halves twisted in opposite directions to free the stone which is then removed, and the halves served for eating as appetizers or dessert. Or the two “cheeks” may be cut off, following the contour of the stone, for similar use; then the remaining side “fingers” of the flesh are cut off for use in fruit cups, etc.
Most people enjoy eating the residual flesh from the seed and this is done most neatly by piercing the stem-end of the seed with the long central tine of a mango fork, commonly sold in Mexico, and holding the seed upright like a lollypop. Small mangos can be peeled and mounted on the fork and eaten in the same manner. If the fruit is slightly fibrous, especially near the stone, it is best to peel and slice the flesh and serve it as dessert, in fruit salad, on dry cereal, in gelatin or custards, or on ice cream. The ripe flesh may be spiced and preserved in jars. Surplus ripe mangos are peeled, sliced, and canned in sirup, or made into jam, marmalade, jelly, or nectar. The extracted pulpy juice of fibrous types is used for making mango halva and mango leather. Sometimes corn flour and tamarind seed jellos are mixed in. Mango juice may be spray-dried and powdered and used in infant and invalid foods, or reconstituted and drunk as a beverage. The dried juice, blended with wheat flour has been made into “cereal” flakes, A dehydrated mango custard powder has also been developed in India, especially for use in baby foods.
Ripe mangos may be frozen whole or peeled, sliced, and packed in sugar (1 part sugar to 10 parts mango by weight) and quick-frozen in moisture-proof containers. The diced flesh of ripe mangos, bathed in sweetened or unsweetened lime juice, to prevent discoloration, can be quick-frozen, as can sweetened ripe or green mango puree. Immature mangos are often blown down by spring winds. Half-ripe or green mangos are peeled and sliced as filling for pie, used for jelly, or made into sauce which, with added milk and egg whites, can be converted into mango sherbet. Green mangos are peeled, sliced, parboiled, then combined with sugar, salt, and various spices and cooked, sometimes with raisins or other fruits, to make chutney; or they may be salted, sun-dried and kept for use in chutney and pickles. Thin slices, seasoned with turmeric, are dried, and sometimes powdered, and used to impart an acid flavor to chutneys, vegetables, and soup. Green or ripe mangos may be used to make relish.
In Thailand, green-skinned mangos of a class called “keo”, with sweet, nearly fiberless flesh and very commonly grown and inexpensive on the market, are soaked whole for 15 days in salted water before peeling, slicing, and serving with sugar.
Processing of mangos for export is of great importance in Hawaii in view of the restrictions on exporting fresh fruits. Hawaiian technologists have developed methods for steam- and lye-peeling, also devices for removing the peel from unpeeled fruits in the preparation of nectar. The choice of suitable cultivars is an essential factor in processing mangos for different purposes.
The Food Research Institute of the Canada Department of Agriculture has developed methods of preserving ripe or green mango slices by osmotic dehydration,
The fresh kernel of the mango seed (stone) constitutes 13% of the weight of the fruit and 55% to 65% of the weight of the stone. The kernel is a major by-product of the mango-processing industry. In times of food scarcity in India, the kernels are roasted or boiled and eaten. After soaking to dispel the astringency (tannins), the kernels are dried and ground into flour which is mixed with wheat or rice flour to make bread and it is also used in puddings.
The fat extracted from the kernel is white, solid like cocoa butter and tallow, edible, and has been proposed as a substitute for cocoa butter in chocolate.
The peel constitutes 20% to 25% of the total weight of the fruit. Researchers in India have shown that the peel can be utilized as a source of pectin. The average yield on a dry-weight basis is 13%.
