Mango Muffins

Warning:  This blog post contains delicious recipe content.  Viewer discretion is advised.

If you live in North America, you probably have sampled baked goods that have oatmeal as an ingredient, like oatmeal cookies and oatmeal muffins.  You may have noticed that fruit also has found a place in these baked goods to produce things like oatmeal raisin cookies and oatmeal banana bread.  Sounds yummy, right?

If you are from North America, you haven't seen mango appear very frequently in baking recipes.  But it looks like that situation may change.  In 2007, 14% of consumed mangos were in the form of a food ingredient.  By 2011 that figure nearly doubled to 27%.  Indeed, "mango availability per capita has increased 32 percent since 2005 to an estimated 2.47 pounds per year in 2012" (www.mango.org).  As mangos become a more common component in North American diets, it's expected that mango ingredients in baked goods will also become more common.

Here is your chance to get ahead of the curve.

Introducing . . .

Mango Muffins (with Oatmeal Raisin and Apple)

3 cups oatmeal
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
5/8 cup Java Bite dried mangos (chopped)
1/2 cup honey
5/8 cup nonfat milk
2 large eggs
1 cup grated apple (about 2 apples)
1/4 cup raisins

Chop oatmeal in blender until it has the consistency of flour.  Combine the oatmeal flour with the remaining dry ingredients in a bowl (cloves, cinnamon, ginger, salt, baking powder and raisins).  Combine the wet ingredients (eggs, honey, nonfat milk) with chopped Java Bite dried mangos in a blender and puree.  Combine puree with dry ingredients and the grated apple.  Pour equal amounts of the mixture into 12 to 16 muffin containers.  Bake at 375 for at least 20 minutes.

You will note that this delicious recipe results in a low-fat, low-calorie snack (about 90 calories per muffin) that has a yummy tropical fruit taste.

Give this recipe a try and let others know the results by leaving comments below!

Mouths to Feed

Village workers earning money

 "Don't try to work with village people.  It will be much more difficult for you."

Those words from a business owner in Indonesia caused me to pause and carefully consider the path I was forging for myself. Although I had that conversation over six years ago I have never forgotten the warning.  It was perhaps the best warning I ever ignored.

Has it been difficult?  Absolutely!  But despite the warning, I felt it was necessary to do what I could to help people who were living on $2 a day.  Over the years since that interaction with the businessman, it seems that my convictions have grown even stronger that, difficult or not, working directly with village residents may be the only way to create jobs among them.  After all, there are mouths to feed in their families.

Has something noteworthy been accomplished?  At the very least, it is now evident that village communities are capable of producing food products for export.  There are mouths to feed in the rest of the world also.

Mouths to Feed in America

In September, we shipped 705 kg of packaged dried mangos to the US.  Of the 2822 packages that were shipped, almost all have been sold.  In fact, as of today (May 17, 2013), only 211 packages remain.  The remaining packages may be sold soon because of the special offer (see below).

Java Bite dried mangos in US stores.

The mouths in America had noticeably different tastes than the mouths in the villages of East Java.  Ask a villager in Tiron to taste three different types of mango blindfolded and he/she will guess them correctly every time.  On the other hand, the average American may not even be aware that three different types of mango exist.

But ask an American about dried fruit and you will discover an awareness of dozens of types of dried fruit products, which are soft, chewy and full of natural flavor.  For an Indonesian, dried fruit is fruit that has been subjected to deep frying in a pan of hot oil!

It was indeed a challenge to train folks who have a very sophisticated knowledge of fresh mango to make a product that they had never seen, and that they didn't even want to buy!  After all, when the fresh product is so abundantly available in such appealing variations, a dried product doesn't seem that appealing, unless it is fried and covered in chili sauce.

Nevertheless, these villagers succeeded where many thought they would fail.  They produced an exportable product, maintaining hygiene and product quality standards required by certifying agencies.  If you don't believe me, you can check out the health certificates from 2012 and 2013.  But perhaps more importantly, they made a product that satisfied the tastes of Americans.  Check out the unsolicited customer comments here and here and even here.  By feeding mouths in America they are able to feed the mouths of their own family members.

Another Shipment

With dwindling inventory in the US, we felt it was time to execute another shipment.  By the end of May, there will be another 6750 packages of (150 gram) dried mango available for sale in the US.  Packed in 135 cases, the shipment began it's long journey from Tiron village in April.  When the product arrives at the warehouse in Iowa, you will be able to purchase the product on our online store.

Expression of Gratitude

If you live in the US, we want to show our appreciation to you for being a part of the market that is helping us to help the folks of Tiron village.  If you sign up for our newsletter and let me know that you did so by utilizing the "Contact Us" page, I will email you a coupon code that will deduct 33% off of the purchase price for any amount of Sunburst dried mango (250 gram).  Of course, we can only make this offer while supplies last, so you may want to check product availability before you make plans for large purchases.

You can check product availability, sign up for the newsletter, receive updates about the recent shipment and order product at our online store.

http://store.javabite.com

Getting to Know You

Paging through my passport in his stuffy, humid office, the immigration officer probed the little book to find little tidbits of information from which he could assemble a picture of me.  I decided to make it easier for him.  After all, I chose to be the one sitting in the chair opposite his desk, instead of some hired intermediary who typically shuttle documents between foreigners and immigration officials.  I wanted to meet him face to face.

As a newcomer to the city of Malang, where REI-Indonesia is now basing operations, I feel the need to know and be known by an increasing number of people in a growing network of professional connections.  So, within days of our arrival in Malang, I determined to meet as many people as I could in the immigration office by personally carrying out the normal procedures required of foreigners.  It didn't take long before I had personal meetings with heads of the office, all of whom wanted to know who I was.  After all, it is their job to know the foreigners.

I kept the story brief but relevant, describing the period I was consultant, which he noted in my passport, and the insight about poverty alleviation I gained from working with nationals.  Then I told him about the years of technology development and the subsequent years of training village workers.

He offered a quick response.  "Production is the easy part.  There are lots of things that can be produced in villages.  The hard part is marketing.  You can't create jobs if you don't succeed in marketing."

I mentioned the recent export of village products to the US and the plans to expand production, which is why I was requesting a visa from his office.

He chimed in again.  "People need to work and businesses are important.  It's a shame that the environment suffers so much."

I described the ongoing environmental degradation in the village, which has suffered under the unregulated practices of mining interests.  Then I tried to connect the dots for him:  by processing mangos in the village, residents have more economic reasons to refuse the short-term contracts of mining companies that leave their land unusable.

The lights went on for him.  "That's great.  That's a good business model."

Not only have I received a visa, I have gained a friend and an ally in the immigration office.  He represents another person in what I hope to be a growing network of professionals who can grasp our intentions to "build people to build a nation".