Ahoy shipmates!
Greetings from Lintón in Panama, where Brett, Theros and I are here for a few days before we head further into the Caribbean. In my recent article “30 liveaboard lessons from my first 6 months at sea” I talked a little bit about how sailing has improved my health, fitness and wellbeing. One of the essential elements for both Brett and I has been maintaining a healthy diet.
“Avast ye scurvy dogs”
Back in the olden days sailors spent months on end at sea and suffered ailments brought on by poor diets, which lacked essential vitamins and minerals. One of the common conditions between the 15th and 18th centuries was scurvy, caused by vitamin C deficiency.
Symptoms included fatigue, malaise, anaemia, bleeding of the gums, loss of teeth, pain in the limbs, swelling in parts of the body and even death. Urghh! Sounds quite grim, doesn’t it?
Not surprisingly, scurvy crept into vernacular language use of seafaring folk as an insult. Sea pirates used the term ‘scurvy dogs’ to reprimand their subordinates, e.g. “Avast ye scurvy dogs”, meaning to stop or desist what they were doing.
Sailing through central America has brought us an abundance of fruit, whenever we are on shore, so we make the most of this. We carry quite a lot of dry goods onboard, including nuts and root ginger. I’ve been experimenting with different combinations for healthy breakfast smoothies and here is one of my own favourite recipes.
“Good Morning Sunshine!”- Smoothie Recipe
Preparation time = 15 mins
Serves = 2 people
Equipment
- Chopping board
- Sharp knife
- Blender/liquidizer
Ingredients
- 1 large ripe and juicy mango
- 1 large smooth passion fruit or 3 or 4 small wrinkly ones
- 1 large juicy orange*
- 1 crisp apple
- 1 inch cubed nub of fresh root ginger
- 1 handful of raw almonds
- 1 handful of mixed pecans and walnuts
- Cold water to top up
* you can add other citrus fruit juices to suit your tastes if you like e.g. lime, lemon
Method
- Using a sharp knife cut the mango lengthways, either side of the narrow, flat stone in the middle. For each half of the fruit you have left, score the flesh in a grid pattern, turn the skin inside out making it easy to slice the cubes of flesh off the skin. Put all cubes of mango flesh into the blender.
- Cut the passion fruit lengthways and scoop out the seeds and orange pulp. Add this to the mango.
- Next, add a peeled orange and try to remove as much pith and pips as you can and a cored and chopped apple but leave the skin on.
- Peel the nub of ginger and finely dice this and add it to the mix.
- Drop in the handfuls of nuts.
- Top up the blender with ice cold water to blend easily.
- Whiz everything up in the blender until smooth and pour into glasses.
- Kick back and drink in the sunshine!
A roundup of the smoothie’s nutritional elements
In case you are interested, here is a summary of some of the vitamins, minerals and other nutritional elements contained in the various smoothie ingredients:
Almond – vitamin E, calcium, phosphorous, iron and magnesium and mono-unsaturated fatty acids like oleic and palmitoleic acids. It also contains zinc, selenium, copper and niacin.
Apple – potassium, phosphorus, calcium, manganese, magnesium, iron and zinc as well as vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, C, E, K, folate, and niacin.
Ginger – calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, selenium and sodium as well as vitamins C, E and B6. The ginger rhizome also contains protein, fibre and essential oils.
Mango – vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C, vitamin E, potassium, copper and poly-phenolic flavonoid antioxidant compounds.
Orange – vitamin A, vitamin C, B-complex vitamins, potassium and calcium.
Passion fruit – good source of vitamin A, vitamin C, iron and potassium.
Pecan – vitamins from the B group, vitamin A, vitamin E, calcium, potassium, iron, folic acid, phosphorus, zinc and magnesium selenium. Pecans also contain oleic acid and phenolic antioxidants.
Walnut – omega 3 and 6 fats, copper, folic acid, phosphorous, manganese, vitamins B6 and E.
I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do.
May your days be sunshiny and scurvy-free. Arrrgghhhh!
Peace, love and light,
Sarah xxx
Wayfaring Sarah 