How Kakadu Plum Can Help Boost Your Health, Immunity and Wellbeing
We’re big believers that it's the little things you do daily that make the most significant difference to your health. There’s no point trying to make big changes in your life when they’re not sustainable long-term.
Looking after your health and supporting your natural immunity is a way of life. It's the actions you take consistently to support your own and your family's health.
One of the things we keep up in our daily routine, no matter how busy we get, is the intake of vitamin C that we get through Kakadu plum. We'll show you how to incorporate this incredible ingredient into your day, but first...
What exactly is Kakadu Plum?
The incredible Australian Native Kakadu Plum or Gubinge is a natural source of vitamin C – in fact, the highest per quantity to any other food source in the world! It's slightly citrusy and an absolute super-fruit.
But because sustainability is just as important as health, we 're careful about where we source ours from. Our Kakadu Plum is wild-grown and hand-harvested, supporting local Indigenous communities, their land ownership, employment as well as working with Indigenous management of the lands and nature.
What makes Kakadu Plum so amazing?
Australian Native flora and their fruits grow in particularly harsh conditions. Part of their beauty and incredible nutritional levels come from learning to survive and thrive in these conditions.
Over hundreds of thousands of years, these amazingly-diverse plants have developed ways to survive in extremes of heat and cold, dry and arid landscapes, drought and floods.
The Australian Native Kakadu Plum in our Mayella skincare and Mayella nutritional whole foods is highly-available and easily absorbed, which means that it's really easy for your body to put it to good use. When foods aren't highly-available, our bodies have to work extra hard to break them down and extract nutrients from them.
A really easy way to get Kakadu plum in your diet is through our two nutritional blends – Acai Berry Beautiful and Green Harmony Blend. The vitamins, minerals, enzymes and phytonutrients work together as a concentrated whole foods source of vitamin C.
Why is Vitamin C so important to a healthy immune system?
Vitamin C supports many of our body’s daily and immune functions. The good news is that it's a water-soluble vitamin which means it’s difficult to overdose, especially when you’re consuming natural sources (as in Kakadu plum).
Vitamin C helps with:
- The growth and repair of tissues and collagen production
- Assisting wounds to heal (and speed up the recovery time)
- Keeping eyes, bones, gums and teeth healthy
- Creating smooth, supple skin, flexible tendons and ligaments
- Heart health and preventing anaemia
- Energy! That sparkle, bounce and glow which is possible when our body has easy access to the energy it requires to function
- Repair and recovery from radiation, oxidation cycles and free radical damage.
Vitamin C's power over free radicals
Free radicals are a natural part of life. It’s only when the exposure to free radicals (internally or externally in our environment) gets out of balance, that it becomes a problem as our bodies struggle to maintain a healthy balance.
The food we eat, our level of exercise and our environment all have an impact on the level of free radicals in our lives.
We're exposed to free radicals in our environment with air and radiation pollution, cigarette smoke, UV light even from the sun, as well as the compounds formed internally when our body converts food into energy.
Our bodies are capable and geared to deal with free radicals when we have a manageable and balanced level of exposure. For example, when we have enough clean air and water to balance out the pollution from our daily commute. Or when we eat lots of fresh whole foods to balance out any 'dead food' like those that are over-processed or filled with preservatives (don't worry, we know that it's not possible to always eat healthily!).
When your body can’t keep up with free radical production, oxidative damage starts to occur. Oxidation affects everything from our skin and energy levels to our immunity.
Vitamin C is part of a group of vitamins called anti-oxidants. They help to stimulate new cell growth, repair and renew and protect against the process of oxidation.
Children and vitamin C
Young, growing bodies benefit from natural sources of Vitamin C to keep up with the demands of their busy little bodies and their constant growth.
It’s all about having the right ingredients to be able to grow to their potential and have the ability to ward off the everyday coughs, colds and germs by building resilient immune systems.
We have included a recipe below using our Green Harmony nutritional blend. This blend also contains barley grass, a green plant-source which is also naturally very high in Vitamin C. This drink is totally child-approved and so fun in its green colour.
Another kid-friendly favourite is our Acai Berry Beautiful blend which can be mixed into coconut water, your choice of milk, into yoghurt or even eaten straight off the spoon. Yum!
Green C Juice or Smoothie Recipe
- 250-300mls unsweetened coconut water
- 1 heaped teaspoon Mayella Green Harmony Blend
- 1 teaspoon chia seeds
Place all ingredients into a glass or BPA free bottle, shake and enjoy.
The chia seeds make it a little crunchy when you drink it fresh. Or you can put it in the fridge overnight and allow the chia seeds to swell and be more spongy – a make at home 'bubble juice'.
Give to your children with a bamboo or stainless steel straw and have fun trying to suck up the little chia bubbles as they drink.
Prefer a smoothie?
Add a fresh banana or mango to your ingredients and blend to make a fresh creamy smoothie.
Or, add less fruit and extra ice to make the smoothie more of a “slushy” style.
What do you think, could you incorporate more of the delicious superfood of Kakadu plum into your everyday routine?
Extract research paper: Kakadu Plum Bioactive Properties.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10056586/
Despite its unique phytochemical properties, the Kakadu plum contains a high concentration of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and was identified as a bush plant nutrient by Aboriginal people [11]. In the first report, Kakadu plum fruit contained 2300–3150 mg of ascorbic acid per 100 g of fresh weight (2.3–3.1%). However, on a dry weight basis in an- other study, the ascorbic acid levels were recorded as 14,038 ± 701 mg per 100 g (~14%) [12]. The Barbados cherry (or acerola, Malpighia glabra L.), native to Brazil, is considered to be the fruit with the highest vitamin C content in the world, with an average vitamin C content of about 1.7% fresh weight [13]. Tropical fruits such as Acerola (Malpighia emarginata) and Camu-Camu (Myrciaria dubia) are known to have significant levels of vitamin C ranging from 1677 to 2280 mg per 100 g fresh weight (FW) [14]. It is clear that the natural ascorbic acid content in the Kakadu plum is higher than these fruits known for their high ascorbic acid content. In addition, vitamin C is an effective reducing agent and a scavenger for free radicals in biological systems. The hydrogen atoms provided by vitamin C can form stable ascorbic acid free radicals, which can effectively reduce oxidative damage in the daily metabolism of the human body."
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Ang
April 12, 2023
Buying Australian made products is extremely important to me. I actively look for logos and information. Australian quality I believe is much higher standard so that’s just one reason why it’s so important to me.
It is definitely something i consider when shopping. Actually the first thing i look for. when i have a choice, i always choose Australian Made or Australian grown as a preference.