HiHealth challenge: Medicinal spicy papaya salad for pain relief an...

This week's health challenge was to prepare a healthy dish and as I'm all about food as medicine I had to join in. It wasn't too long ago I had made a post about food that relieves pain so when I recently got very sick with some virus I was doing all I could to use medicinal foods and herbs to treat the illness. I knew papaya contained papain a powerful anti-bacterial chemical, papaya is very well known for working on stomach problems and helps both loose bowls as well as constipation but it's not so known for how it can be used in pain relief. Only the green papaya or the seeds have the highest concentrate of papain. This is why I was craving a well known Thai dish called spicy papaya salad that used the green papaya.

Unfortunately the original is not vegan because it contains fish sauce and shrimp and also they use sugar which Is not healthy but its always fun to veganize dishes and swap some of the ingredients, so here's my attempt.

First I chopped the cabbage and grate the cabbage and papaya. Then I move on to making the sauce which is what this salad is all about. Because I'm in Indonesia right now and staying next to farms, there is always an abundance of ordinary veg and tropical fruit. Ordinarily I wouldnt make this salad back home because I like to source local food. Peanuts are abundant here and they are a good source of energy and healthy fat. This peanuts have been freshly picked and left to dry, I've de-shelled them and lightly toasted them. Once that's done I've added some local chili and garlic which are great for stimulating the body and sweating out any illness or keeping the body protected from potential illness. These are combined in the blender with a little lime juice and pinch of himalaya salt.

Once nicely combined into a loose paste, I make the other part of the sauce which is a substitute for fish sauce by using this sour honey made from mahagony tree bees. Although honey isn't strictly vegan it's a bit of a grey area as some vegans use it and some don't. In general I don't buy honey but we came across this from a herbal doctor I had to visit because of my infection, she was selling this honey as a treatment for insect bites to lower the blood sugar level for people like myself who eat alot of fruit. I use it only for medicinal purposes but thought it would work well in this recipe because its sour to substitute for soy/fish sauce flavour.

I combined it with fresh pineapple processed into a pulp. Pineapple is also a fruit that contains papain and works as a pain reliever.

This sauce is combined with the spicy peanut mixture, creates a flavour explosion, so good that makes this simple salad into something very exotic and extra ordinary.

I mixed the sauce into the salad but also plated the salad with extra sauce to make a stronger flavour as the sauce is sooooo tasty and served with one crinkly lime. These crinkly limes are very small but full of condensed flavour and strong smell much more than a normal lime. Lime alkalizes the body, which creates a healthy environment in your system and keeps disease away

I'm currently travelling with some special utensils, knives, plates and display matt, as well as ingredients I pick up along the way. My kitchen is a travelling one so I can keep up my strict healthy diet, for me. There is no excuse even when travelling its possible to keep making and creating your own food. I choose to stay in places with kitchens and right now I'm actually living in a house in the heart of an indonesian village in North lombok, in fact the diet here is extremely healthy and the people are practically vegan unless they sacrifice a cow, goat or chicken on special days but otherwise do not eat meat. You can see many people are slim and fit and very able to do hard farming work in the extreme heat. Maintaing a healthy diet is very important to long term health and well being.