Healthy Eating Need Not be Hard.

“So I wrote a book, to put people in that direction of healthier eating.” Authoring Fruitastic! Her award-winning book on fruits and great recipes with fruits, she aims to bust a few misconceptions people have about healthy eating. Aunty Mohana’s four Fruitastic mantras: One : It’s a myth that healthy eating is boring. It can be vibrant, delicious and you can eat as much as you want. Two : It’s definitely nutritious. Incorporating healthy eating into your lives means you don’t need to worry about your daily vitamins and fibres. Three : It’s fun. With the right recipes and information cooking healthier can be very enjoyable. Four : Most importantly, it’s easy and fast to prepare.

According to Aunty Mohana you don’t have to totally change your eating habits overnight. Who can sustain that level of commitment? Just slowly incorporate healthier foods into your eating lifestyle. A good way to start is to get your five intakes of fruits and vegetables a day. “This is easy peasy”, she grins. Begin the morning with a fruit smoothie. Grab some fruits on the go for a mid-morning snack/ raisins. Have a portion of vegetables for lunch. If you feel a bit peckish in the afternoon, grab some nuts or a fruit yogurt. Another portion of vegetables with your dinner

Soon it will become a habit. As for her, she has always eaten healthy. “However, growing older, makes me more aware of good and bad foods”. It was while at an anti-ageing conference with her husband in Las Vegas a few years ago that she hit upon the idea of writing a cookbook. “I discovered that people at the conference were obsessed about anti-ageing but it’s all focused on the physical and aesthetics. Secondly they are huge on supplements, all kinds from garlic supplements to vitamins.” Aunty Mohana gave this some thought and quickly came to the realisation that there is no reason to take supplements as nature provides everything we need in fruits and vegetables. “It’s not expensive, it’s readily available and in Asian food culture its already incorporated in our diets. All you need to do is eat right.”

"She totally blew our minds…"

Writing Fruitastic! and Vegemania!

Deciding on what kind of cookbook to write took longer. The market is flooded with thousands of cookbooks of every topic imaginable. And thus she hit on the idea of a book on fruits that will combine information and easy recipes using fruits. Most of the recipes in Fruitastic! are her concoction. For instance, the jambu air or water apple by itself might not appear exciting but she poaches it in orange water like pears and presto! A delicious dessert. “I enjoyed doing this book tremendously”. A year later Vegemania! came out which is fully vegan. “It was natural to come out with a book on vegetables after one on fruits”.

In the course of her research, she also found out a lot of things about fruits and vegetables. For instance chillies are not only good for adding that Asian-obsessed heat to a dish but it also has so much goodness in it. Chillies are good anticoagulants, that helps in preventing heart attacks or strokes caused by blood clots. It also has a high content of vitamin C. She also found out that sweet potato is the healthiest vegetable in the world with twice the daily allowance of Vitamin A, tons of Vitamin C and beta carotene, and when eaten with the skin contains more fibre than oatmeal!

A lot of the vitamins vegetables and fruits contain are in the skin. The watermelon rind for example contains the most goodness. You can’t really eat it on its own but you can add it into your smoothie. That is another thing her cookbooks encourage. The way food is cooked also affects its nutritional value. In her books are all kinds of scrumptious recipes that use braising, grilling, baking and steaming. Far from tasting bland Mohana uses spices and herbs to give colour to the meal and satisfy our spicy quota. Try her wonderful enchiladas or stuffed Portobello mushrooms designed to give meat eaters substance and satisfaction. For a new twist on fruits try the surprising Guava Curry (cooked in curry, the laidback guava tastes like a combination of robust pumpkin and crunchy avocado- amazing!) and the delicious Andra Rice that uses grated coconut and chillies in a splendid way (Friedchillies.TV episode 6: Healthy Dinner Party).

Favourite Recipes.

When asked about her favourite recipes in her book Mohana enthuses, “I love the Jackfruit Biryani (page 104: Fruistastic!) and the Quinoa Pillaf (page 215: Vegemania! also Friedchillies.TV episode 5). Quinoa is a really wonderful discovery. It’s a cereal grain from Peru classified as a UN super crop a great source of fibre, magnesium and amino acids. It looks like couscous but when it’s cooked in stock it has a lovely fluffy texture with a nutty flavour. We tried this and found it utterly addictive. What a bonus, healthiest grain in the world and tastes fabulous!

If you are first timers to her cookbooks and wanted to know how good her recipes can be, Aunty recommends that you start by trying her Portobello Mushrooms, pototo chaat or Veggie Enchilada recipes from her Vegemania! book. For a quick snack, try the minted melon salad and kiwi orange delight smoothie from her Fruitastic! Book. That should get anyone started on a vegetarian journey (Editors Note : Aunty Mohana will be showing these recipes on FriedChillies.TV, so stay tuned).