By: Hanna Thomas

Other than sharing our crazy experiences, my favorite thing to talk about is food and health related things.

While we were surprised at some of the crazy things we found as ingredients here in most foods (think preservatives and MSG- yikes! When we first had our food deliveries, bags of MSG were delivered to us. I was in shock. My dad has been telling me for years how bad that is! I thought everyone knew that!) we are really thankful for all of the amazing food that comes straight from the trees and the land here.

One big reason we are excited to build our home is so that we can start an aquaponics system where we will be able to grow our own fruits and veggies and tilapia at the same time! I am totally sold on the fact that food is medicine and that we can prevent and heal so many problems based on what we eat. We tend to eat as much real food as possible. And then we make as much as we can from scratch. The kids aren’t completely sold on our way of eating but the fact that they beg for more roasted broccoli warms my heart.

I’m thankful to live in a beautiful place where mangos, coconuts, and papayas grow like crazy. We’ve done some cool stuff with them and whether you live in Guatemala, Canada, the States or anywhere, I think you could enjoy these ideas!

1. Papaya

Papaya is perfect to cut up and eat with lunch but my very favorite way to eat it is to refrigerate it, cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and eat it just like that. Evan likes to add yogurt or cottage cheese to the middle where the seeds were. This is great too because you don’t need a bowl, just a spoon. And things that involve fewer dishes are definite wins.

Papaya seeds are great for parasites and they are loaded with antioxidents. They are good to help detox the body and to aid in digestion. They are packed with Vitamin C so they are really good for keeping you cold and sickness free. They also contain a digestive enzyme, Papain, which some studies say may help in treating cancer.

2. Mango

I love mangos so much. I love that we can all go out and my kids can teach me about which are good, the different varieties, and they can climb up giant trees to pick them. My favorite thing to do, as you might expect, is to cut them, freeze them and use them for smoothies. Or better yet, use them to make Nicecream. Yes, nice-cream instead of ice-cream. Take 3/4 cup of frozen mango and 1/4 cup frozen banana, blend in a food processor or blender with a splash of almond milk and you’ve got this amazing, sorbet textured treat.

Still have a goal of drying mangos to have all year round in granola or just plain. Those bags of Trader Joes dried mango strips were my weakness and every time we would go backpacking in the mountains of Idaho we would bring a few bags of them. So the taste and smell of dried mangos, odd as it might be, brings back super sweet memories.

Mangos are good for your eyes (zeaxanthin), your bones (Vitamin K), your brain (B Vitamins), with the vitamins A and C they help your body produce collagen which helps slow aging and helps your skin, and the list could go on and on. Moral of the story, eat your mangos.

3. Coconuts

These little guys are our most recent food adventure and it has gone really well. Allison and Chloe O’Connor made us some coconut milk one day and then we asked their boys and our boy Hector to go get us all some more so we could keep making milk because it was SO GOOD! And Almond Milk here is something I’d be happy to cut out of our budget. Since then we’ve been making coconut milk that we use in everything- I used it in pancakes this morning, smoothies yesterday and I’ll in oatmeal and cereal and all that and the kids love it.

Using the coconuts my boys cut out of the trees we cut out the chunks, boiled them and then for yogurt just did 2 cups of chunks to 1/2 cup coconut water, 3 probiotic capsules, a little lime, and some monk fruit sweetener. I blended all of that for a while in my vitamix until it was a smooth texture. This isn’t the official way to make coconut yogurt- I’ll be exploring that more in the future when I get some other probiotics but it definitely looks like, tastes like and has the same texture as yogurt so I’m happy with that!

Coolest thing was making Coconut Oil. We skimmed off the thick part from coconut milk- the top part that separates after it sits. We just had that simmering in a pan on high, stirring regularly, and at the end, the oil and meat separated. Took about 5 coconuts to make maybe a cup of oil, so I’m not sure how sustainable that is but it is awesome to know we can do it. It’s also by far the best, most rich smelling coconut oil I’ve ever smelled!

With all of the meat that was left over from the coconut oil and coconut milk, I made some homemade Almond Joys. I mixed maple syrup with the meat and then melted chocolate chips and covered the coconut. SO good! Definitely something I feel good giving my kids and they love it! I’m sure to come up with more creations for all of the coconut meat.

You can make all of these things at home using frozen coconut (I’ve heard you can you find that at Trader Joes and Whole Foods) or unsweetened coconut shreds. We just are blessed with coconuts in our backyard and boys who like cutting them. Feels good to eat from the earth!

These coconut things we’ve made are super high in fat, which is great if you are concentrating on a high fat, low carb diet. But don’t over do it :)

I will definitely keep sharing the recipes I find that work well here. I make things up all the time and almost always the kids say, “Que rico!” (which means-so good!) so I am thankful for that. My goal is to stay healthy here so that I can be the best mom possible. Learning what is right for your body is really important. My goal is also to help these kids heal in many ways- one being by healing them through the wholesome food. It’s an exciting thing to watch them grow and their brains literally change with the love of parents and with proper nutrition and most of all through the love that only Jesus can give.