I just recently discovered mangosteens--they're DELICIOUS.

Apparently, there's also a boatload of nutrition in the rind: mega-antioxidants, xanthones... which tastes beyond awful. Every site on the internet with "information" is somewhat elusive, and ends up wanting to sell you a product. My one coworker's mother sells a juice--PASTEURIZED--which is a combination of the fruit juice and the rind.

For no less than $25/750mL bottle, at such a remarkable wholesale price.

Anyway, the fruits themselves are once again dirt cheap at my blessed Asian market, and I was wondering, can I do something with the rind? I was reading that a lot of "ancient medicines!" were made by grinding up the rind, into a tea, etc.

Or I could just hero it, try eating an entire rind (gulp...), and see what happens. >8)

If I do have the fruits, I figure, I might as well make the most of them, and so far, I've just been throwing out the rinds. Suggestions? Novel ideas? XD

They are delicious, but I'm with you on the rind...blech! even getting a small amount on one of the fruit sections can ruin the whole taste...very astringent.

Intuitively I would think that something that tastes that awful is not meant to be eaten, but maybe that's why they made it into tea.

I too have a friend whose mother is selling Mangosteen juice. In my opinion that stuff is being marketed to people who do not want to change their diet at all, but want something healthy. They are probably much better off for drinking the stuff, but it might not make that much difference to someone already eating whole raw fruits and veggies.

...but i shouldn't talk because i'm just starting a pretty intense 4 week cleanse that is pretty heavy on the supplements.

Short answer= I have no idea what you could do with the rinds.

Good luck, Greg

Aloha Nui Loa,

Greg

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. - William James

There is no pill that can be swallowed,
There is no guru, that can be followed, - Michael Franti (Pray For Grace)

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. - Albert Camus

I'm not sure if boiling the rind to make a tea would destroy all of the good stuff or not. I'll experiment. >8)

Last night, lying awake in bed, I had the epiphany: make a SUN TEA!

Although, it's quite below zero and snowing heavily, so I may have to wait to keep you posted on the sun tea experiment. Sigh.

I do agree with you on the, "if it tastes bad, we probably shouldn't eat it," idea. But sometimes cacao tastes extremely delicious and not bitter at all, maybe when I need something from it?

At any rate, my experiments will be cheaper than the nonsense $25 juice experiment.

If you eat the whole food, you are honoring the balance of the plant and the fruit. Tha balance of toxins vs. nutrients is designed such that it allows for the fruit/seeds to be acquired by a "spreader of the seeds",.....but not totally consumed by said "spreader".

If you want to take all the good part of the fruit and leave behind everything else, obviously it's no problem for you, but you are not honoring that balance.

This is how people get sick, though.

If they eat too much sweetness or too much acidity...or do it too fast,.....ouchy.

This is why pharmaceuticals can be toxic. They are all basically ultra-hyperdistilled plant/animal products.

For example, blood pressure lowering meds originated by isolating chemicals in pit viper venom....venom designed to decrease the basal metabolic rate of a mouse or a rat so that the snake can take it back to it's home without eating it, but without it rotting (and attracting the birds). It's not that complicated. Nature has a nice balance that we (humans) have been ignoring for a very long time.

Again, it SEEMS like NO problem for us if we don't hnor it, but if we look at our environment...

....I think we're all starting to see that it is actually a problem.

[www.oneillpaul.com-a.googlepages.com]

I guess I answered some of my own questions, but this link was pretty informational:

[altmedicine.about.com]

It does all come back to balance.

I boiled the rind just for a few minutes out of idle curiosity: interestingly, the water turned instantly a neon green, and had a very strong, bitter taste, similar to a tea I used to make with green cardamom, cloves, ginger, and black pepper.

It's very weird. As the moral of the story always goes, I think it's best to just eat the fruit in its natural, whole state. Science doesn't know everything about all the available compounds that may exist, but the body does, and uses them appropriately.