Fertility food series - Raw papaya salad with hibiscus and pumpkin flower

Eating salads everyday is a healthy practice, but if you eat the same type of salads everyday, you will tend to get bored. So be creative and pluck new, fresh and healthy ingredients from your garden. Hibiscus and pumpkin flowers have been traditionally used by our ancestors to treat infertility problems.  I have prepared this salad today for lunch, you can use your wild imagination and add more colour to the salad

Scrape raw  mature papaya (not ripe) after removing the skin(remove the sap by making shallow cuts on skin)Slice an onion finely. Cube raw mango or any other sour fruit like ambazham ( indian hog plum )  lovika (scram berry) or green apple into small slices. Mix them together with few tomato slices, add a dash of lemon juice, sprinkle some pepper and salt (optional,try to reduce the salt intake) according to your taste . And here comes the twist, decorate  the salad with petals of hibiscus flower and pumpkin flower.

Variety is the spice of life, so  try various salads. They are extremely nutritious and if made from ingredients in your backyard, they will be fresh, chemical free and retain all vitamins  and of course will be more easy on your wallet .

Hibiscus and pumpkin flowers are very high in antioxidants . Hibiscus is  popular and quite expensive in  Australia and many western countries in its dried form for making tea. In India, specially in Kerala, the shoe flower plant  is found in almost all households.  In tribal medicine ambazhams and shoe flowers are used for regulating menstruation.

Dr. Anita Mani
Infertility Specialist at Gift IVF Centre

anitadane@gmail.com

www.giftivf.com

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