Baobab Smoothies

Have any of you been to the Eden Project in Cornwall and had one of their Baobab Smoothies? Tim and I did while we were back in the UK last year and ever since I have been keen to make one of those "superfruit smoothies" here in Tanzania. I have been checking every baobab tree we pass for fruit. But either there is no fruit or it is far to high to attempt to pick! But last week in Kimande, we got ourselves some baobab fruits and got excited about smoothies!


Standing under a baobab tree in Kimande

The African Baobab's fruit is incredibly good for you with twice as much calcium as milk, 6 times the vitamin C of an orange, high in potassium and with one of the highest antioxidant capacities of any fruit in the world. It has fourteen essential vitamins and minerals and is almost fifty per cent fibre... get the idea? This is one good fruit to eat!

So what to do with the fruit? In the UK the super-powder of the Baobab fruit comes in a tidy little (expensive) package, neatly labelled with all those health benefits and probably with an attached leaflet of what do with it. But we just had the tree. And a very hard fruit.

So we bashed and banged and whacked the fruit to crack it open ... no easy task. And this is what we found.

Inside there are large, oil-rich seeds surrounded by powder and fibres. I knew I wanted the powder, but how to get it? I asked around in the village. Following the advice from a neighbour, I soaked the seeds in a bowl of water with some sugar for half an hour and then was able to remove the seeds, leaving the powder in the water.

We then strained the messy gloop into a jug and juiced some oranges which we added to it. The end result was delicious! And oh so healthy!

Now there's more things on my list of things to try... Baobab porridge, Baobab energy bars, Baobab Chicken and Groundnut Stew and of course a Baobab Victoria Sponge.

On another note, here is a short video clip showing a bit of the activity from the new stoves group in Kimande! We have a good team! They are working hard and learning well. Please pray for this group as they learn and work together and as they make and sell these stoves to help their community!


Fuel-Efficient Stoves Project in Kimande, Tanzania from Rachel Monger on Vimeo.