Mango

The mango tree is a large evergreen that can exceed 30 metres, with dense dark green leaves and branching sprays of small yellowish-pink flowers. The fruit is a fleshy drupe containing a single large, flattened, oval stone covered with a fibrous husk. Splitting the stone reveals a cream-coloured kernel, often called the mango seed, which is slightly bitter and starchy. Kernels are sold dried, as a powder or flour, and as mango kernel fat, sometimes called mango butter, which is solid at room temperature. In some regions whole stones are sold for planting rather than eating.

Mangoes were first domesticated in the region spanning north-eastern India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and wild relatives are found in South and South-East Asia. Cultivation in India is documented for thousands of years, and the fruit holds a central place in Indian culture. The English word mango comes via Portuguese manga from Malayalam and Tamil mankay or mangai, from man (mango tree) and kay (fruit). The botanical species name indica refers to India. Over many centuries traders carried seedlings to East Africa, South-East Asia, the Middle East and later the Americas.

The mango has been cultivated in the Indian subcontinent for several thousand years and appears in Sanskrit literature, Buddhist stories and Hindu ritual, where mango leaves decorate doorways at festivals. The Mughal emperors, especially Akbar, were famous for planting large orchards, and grafting made it possible to propagate superior varieties exactly, since seeds do not come true to type. Portuguese traders spread the tree to Africa and Brazil in the sixteenth century, and later it reached the Caribbean, Florida and Hawaii.

The seed itself has a long folk history as a famine and supplementary food in India, where kernels were dried, boiled and ground to use in flat breads or gruels when other grains were scarce, after leaching out the bitterness. Kernel fat has attracted modern interest as a cocoa butter equivalent, because its melting behaviour is similar, and mango stones from juice and pulp factories form a large waste stream that researchers have tried to use for food, feed and cosmetics. Today mangoes are among the most widely grown tropical fruits, with India as the largest producer.

In traditional Indian cooking the dried and ground kernel has been used as an extender in flour, and in some regional dishes the boiled kernel is eaten after being soaked. The fat extracted from the kernel is used in confectionery as a cocoa butter alternative and in soaps, lotions and lip balms. Ground kernel powder appears in some Ayurvedic preparations, for example for digestive complaints. Stones are planted to grow rootstocks for grafting, and the husks are sometimes used as fuel. Home cooks rarely eat the seed, and most of the culinary use of mango centres on the ripe and unripe flesh.

Mango kernels contain starch, fat and polyphenols such as gallic acid and tannins, and laboratory studies have reported antioxidant activity in the extracts. Human clinical evidence for any health benefit from eating the kernel is lacking, and traditional uses for diarrhoea and other complaints have not been confirmed in good trials. The tannin content gives the raw kernel a bitter and astringent taste, and processing is needed to reduce it. The flesh of the fruit, rather than the seed, is the main dietary source of vitamin C and carotenoids.