Mangoes and your Health

Mangoes are among the most popular of tropical fruits because they taste so decadently good, not because they're so good for you. A super-healthy way to "have your cake and eat it too," their sweet, juicy flesh packs a nutritional wallop.

Mangoes are Antioxidant Rich
One mango provides about 1,000 IUs of beta-carotene; more than 150 percent of the RDA.

Mangoes also contains 95 percent of the RDA for vitamin C.
Together these disease-fighting antioxidants do double battle against the free radicals that can damage healthy cells and cause cancer.

Antioxidants also help stop free radicals from damaging dangerous LDL cholesterol, making it less likely to stick to artery walls and cause arteriosclerosis, heart attacks, and stroke.

Mangoes Fiber Support
Mangoes offer one of the best, and most digestible, sources of fiber.
More than half of it is soluble fiber, the kind that attaches to and removes cholesterol from the body, there-by reducing risk of heart disease.

The insoluble fiber in mangoes helps maintain bowel regularity, causing stools and any harmful substances in them to move quickly through the body, thus reducing risk of colorectal cancer.

You may need to handle mangoes with kid gloves-or plastic gloves, anyway. Mangoes belong to the same family as poison ivy, and their peel can severely irritate skin. Even if you've never had a reaction before, you may still be susceptible, especially if you handle several mangoes at a time.

Keep mangoes in a cool, dark place to ripen; that helps them retain their vitamin C content.

Many people think that if certain foods are good, a lot is better.
This is not always the case, and high doses of certain food are actually toxic.

Read about the healthy food, research the vitamins and minerals and check with your health care provider if you are unsure about how much to eat and how much may be too much.