-Mango is, like, the physical embodiment of community.

-I think a lot of communities from all over the world can learn from indigenous people.

This has always been going on, and this is what we've always been fighting for, and this is what we've always been trying to preserve.

And I think that could save the world.

-Every dish has a story.

Food brings people together and has the power to conjure up cherished memories.

- There's no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard -I'm so happy to be here.

Hungry.

-Hungry.

[ Laughter ] -I was born and raised in the Hawaiian Islands, one of the most diverse communities in the world.

- I'll tell you one thing We're better together -In this show, we'll meet a guest from Hawaii, learn about their favorite dish, and have some fun along the way.

- It's so much better when we're together -Hawaii has the most stunning beaches in the world.

Surfing, fishing, paddling, canoes -- Growing up, the beach was my backyard.

Just spending a few moments beneath the waves, and you'll come to love and respect the ocean.

Every day, thousands of people visit our beaches, but only a handful of them would be worthy of the distinguished moniker "waterman."

If you travel to the west side of Oahu, you might come across some of those watermen protecting those shores.

And there's actually quite a few famous watermen, water people that have come from Makaha Beach.

Everyone that lives in or around the ocean knows the Keaulana clan.

These people have seawater flowing through their veins.

They even have a family member who plays a waterman in the movies.

[ Laughter ] "Buffalo" Keaulana -- He is the godfather of Makaha, and he was the first lifeguard of that area.

Then you have his son, Brian, a notable waterman in his own right, who innovated lifeguard procedures, which became the model for the rest of the world.

And then there's his daughter, third-generation, continuing the tradition, and our featured guest, Ha'a Keaulana.

Although she is in her 20s, she is channeling or has a connection to the ways of old.

But at the same time, you combine that with that entrepreneurial spirit and that creativity and that go-getter attitude of the Millennial generation.

What she's been able to do for this community out here in Makaha has been staggering.

Makaha -- one of the most well known right-hand breaks in the world.

What's up?

How's it?

-Oh, sick board.

-Thankfully, it's summer because I'm a townee.

And if it was big, I probably would have left my board home and said, "Aw, shucks, I forgot my board."

So this is your home break?

-Yes.

Backyard pretty much.

-God, it's so nuts.

You come here in the wintertime, and it doesn't look at all like this.

-Right?

It's day and night.

-The Keaulana name is synonymous with Makaha, going all the way back to your -- your grandpa.

Did he grow up on this beach or live here as well?

-My grandfather pretty much was raised on this whole coastline.

Growing up here in Makaha was pretty much the best childhood anyone could ask for.

I'd say my greatest teacher in life was the ocean.

I've learned the hard way most of times what to do and what not to do.

-So "Family Ingredients" is really about sharing food.

And I've got to ask you -- What's your fondest food memory growing up in Makaha?

-As far as I can think back, we've always had ice-cold mangoes on the beach, and it's the most refreshing thing.

That's what you look forward to after getting baked in the sun and you're all salty, is a juicy, cold, mango.

-Just flowing down your chin.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Oh, man, that sounds delicious.

-I've never bought a mango in my life because everybody at least has one family member that has a mango tree in their yard.

-Yeah.

Mango is, like, the physical embodiment of community.

Seems like summertime in Hawaii is just, everyone's sharing mangoes, right?

-Yes.

Yes.

-Nice.

And some of the best mangoes I've ever had come from Makaha Valley.

-Mm-hmm.

-I was so stoked when she said mango.

Mangoes thrive in our islands, and everyone looks forward to mango season.

You'll start to find these succulent fruits during the warm summer months.

Mangoes have made their way to Hawaii since the 1800s from Asia, Central America, and even Florida.

People would plant the seeds of their favorite mangoes in their backyard, and over time, our very own distinct Hawaiian varieties have emerged.

Mangoes are a versatile fruit that can be used in desserts, salads, and even savory dishes.

But my favorite way is a nice, cold, slightly underripe sliced mango on a sunny day at the beach.

So you were telling me that you folks as a family have recently gone to a vegan, gluten-free diet.

How come?

-I actually experienced really bad eczema the past two years, and now it's completely gone.

Literally food is medicine.

I barely go to the doctor.

I barely get sick because of what I put in my body.

And I notice my performance is over the roof, and even my recovery.

-Hawaii is the number-one consumer of Spam in the world.

We eat way too much white rice.

I imagine these are the foods that your family grew up eating.

Was it hard making the switch?

-Me and my mom already cut out a lot of things through the past five years, like red meats, and the way Phree makes it has so much flavor that I'm -- I'm still stoked.

Yeah.

-Phree?

-Phree is -- Pretty much he cooks for my family just all plant-based deliciousness.

-They were introduced to a chef.

His name is Phree.

He specializes in healing foods.

It was a treat for me to cook with Phree because this is not the kind of food that I cook.

I like to think that we cook healthful cuisine, but it's definitely not gluten-free, and it's not plant-based.

-So we brought some mango dishes.

I'm supposed to say Ha'a's mango muffins, but I've been instructed that the correct pronunciation is Momoa muffins.

-Oh.

-Oh!

You've obviously had these muffins.

-I've definitely devoured them.

-[ Laughs ] -But have you ever made these muffins?

-No.

Yeah.

-No?

Good.

Good.

So we're both gonna be learning this together.

-So the muffin batter is gonna be real simple.

Now, these are gluten-free because we don't want gluten.

And it's real simple.

So most recipes obviously will ask for oil, eggs, and all types of binders.

We don't have to mess with any of that stuff, or sugars, to make them sweet.

Between the dates and the mangoes, we have all the sugar that you could possibly ever need.

-These things are little sugar bombs.

-Oh, that's exactly what they are.

So why don't you grab some of the flour and mix it in the bowl?

Because we're looking for nutrient density, which is what's important, the flour is made up of garbanzos and tapioca, lentils, fava bean.

-So one of the things you hear -- You hear about gluten-free pastries not having the structure that the gluten provides.

-Correct.

-So where does that come from?

-You need binders and all kinds of fats and things, but there's other ways to accomplish that without using animal products or animal protein or fats or any of that stuff.

You get a little flaxseed with a little bit of water.

You let it sit.

This is your egg whites.

This is your egg yolks.

This is your whatever you're gonna use for -- for pastry.

-So it's got a real kind of gelatinous texture.

Look at that.

-And it happens right away.

So you don't have to wait long.

There's not a whole lot of preparation.

-I'm your sous-chef.

I'll take this one.

-Thank you.

[ Laughs ] -And you'll just mix that until it becomes almost like a pancake batter.

You know, add more liquid, et cetera, et cetera.

You throw all that, blend it, We'll add the delicious mangoes.

But you could use frozen mangoes as well.

-Dates go in there.

These are already seeded.

-That's right.

-It has all the fiber in it, which is very important because your body needs the fiber.

-I'm gonna contribute and put some macadamia nuts in.

-[ Laughs ] -This is it.

Blend, blend, blend.

Technology, technology.

And fast-forward, we have awesome batter.

-Voil.

-So we're gonna bake those at 350 for about 20 minutes.

-How do they flip up?

Is there baking powder in it?

-It's magic.

It really is.

There's baking soda.

There's no yeast.

The flour, water, dates, flax.

That's it.

-Amazing.

-Is that cheese or coconut?

-That's coconut flakes.

-Does that go on top?

-Absolutely.

-Sorry.

-No, absolutely.

It's going down.

-I'm taking control.

[ Laughs ] I'm sorry.

-All recipes are suggestions.

-I may have just sabotaged these.

Sometimes coconut has so much fat in them, you put it in the oven, and it burns.

If it doesn't work, it's my fault.

-Yeah, it's fine.

We'll put them away.

-Beautiful.

-Yeah, those came out really nice.

-Boom.

Boom.

-Okay.

Moment of truth.

This is what I've been hearing about for days now.

I'm gonna actually break it in half.

-I'll go in.

-[ Laughs ] -Be honest.

You're gonna hurt her feelings, not mine.

-I got to -- I got to admit.

-Come on.

-I've been kind of biased against gluten-free... -Of course.

-...because usually it's just mushy, insipid, kind of unflavorful.

But this is actually delicious and healthy.

-A lot of flavor.

-I think it's that magic flaxseed goo that you made.

-Could be.

Or maybe it's just, Ha'a has really got good skills.

-[ Chuckles ] -My grandfather is Buffalo Keaulana.

He is a huge inspiration to this community, the west side of Oahu.

He was a part of the 1976 Hokulea voyage.

Back then, scientists were telling Polynesians that they just drifted upon these islands.

They didn't know how to read stars.

And then when they got to Tahiti, that all got shut down.

When he saw that whole renaissance of cultural revival, he wanted to bring that home to his community.

So that's when he started his Big Board Surfing Classics, to get Hawaiians to reconnect to who they are in the ocean.

-Here we are on the west side of Oahu, which has, in all of the Hawaiian Islands, one of the highest concentrations of native Hawaiian people.

You drive out here, and there's fast food everywhere.

As our diet switched from cultural, complex carbs, such as roots and tubers, to simple carbohydrates and other canned foods, the health of our communities started to decline.

Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders have the highest rates of diabetes and high blood pressure.

Today, people are fighting to bring back our traditional ingredients and a healthy way of life.

I think of this coastline.

There's Ma'o, Kahumana.

Then there's -- Makaha Elementary has one of the most beautiful educational gardens.

-That's the way I think we can change things, is, we have to get into the mindsets of the next generation.

-Hoa Aina O Makaha at Makaha Elementary School is one of those community gems.

It was started 40 years ago by an Italian priest named Gigi Cocquio.

He was one of the people that led protests during the Vietnam War and such.

As a result, he was asked to leave the church.

But this became his church.

Who's Lulu?

-Lulu, she is a little guinea pig that one of our classes have.

And all of this food that you see in her box is grown for Lulu.

It's a cute way for the kids to be involved in the garden, but also involved with a different life.

The guinea pig eat really well.

-[ Laughs ] -Yeah.

Who else eats well is our kids.

Our elementary kids, they all have their own garden bed that they grow their own food.

They get to take home food at least four times in a year.

They plant the seeds, they transplant the babies.

They put them in the ground.

They tell them "good night," and they let it grow.

-Just as the love that we are given by our parents, we got to give the aina the love, too, yeah?

Because the energy that we put in the plant and we feed the people is the energy that they're gonna be eating, too, yeah?

-We have the best farms out here, and it's very accessible and pretty affordable if you go to farmers' market.

-We do it a little bit different at the farmers' market.

We don't have prices.

It would be basically by donations.

So our saying is "take what you need, leave what you can."

For us to be able to give it out at a donation price allows them to educate themselves on how to eat healthy.

-I love it.

It's like a little model.

-Yeah.

Oh, my God.

-This display was built by fourth graders before I was a fourth grader here at Makaha Elementary.

So this is how I got to learn about ahupua'a.

They totally get that this is the mountains.

They see waterfalls happening.

The mauka will hold the water, and it'll bring the water through the kula.

They knew that they could divert water.

They never claimed or owned the water.

Yeah.

So they always knew that they had to put the water back into its stream so that it could eventually get to the ocean.

When the fresh water reaches the salt water and the brackish water starts to happen and the estuary starts to form, phytoplankton starts to grow.

And that's a favorite food of those little fishes.

With the keiki understanding that, and I turn around and ask them, "So what is the ocean needing?"

And they all understand that it's water.

And I ask them, "How often do you see water coming from the mountains into your ocean?"

Nobody raises their hand because they're all from Waianae and they're all in Makaha and they all know, "No more any water is really connecting from mountain to ocean."

-But you're saying there's no water flow now?

-Not today, not in Makaha.

-So you saw those bridges we drove over?

That's where water naturally used to come out.

We don't have natural water flow anymore because it... -Is diverted.

-Diverted to go to homes.

And I hear of dumping into the streams over there.

-I tell them, as the future leaders, you guys get responsibility.

-Yep.

Water rights.

-Yes.

-Mm-hmm.

People out here don't have it easy.

You don't know what background any kids are coming from.

Their parents go through the worst traffic on this whole island.

So a lot of them aren't present in their kids' life.

And these kids just don't get a lot of attention that they need.

So when they get to come and connect and love and take care of something, that is where you see them just flourish and open up.

-This side of the island, Makaha, it's ideal mango-growing weather.

It's hot.

It's warm.

It's dry.

And the best mangoes that I can think of cultivated on this island come from Makaha Mangoes.

-There's one more up there.

-I see them.

I remember picking mangoes with my dad.

He always had this method.

You'd look at the mango, and you could always see when it started to get a little bit color.

You would take the picker and just barely touch the mango.

Oh, yeah!

And if it fell off, that's when you wanted it.

You never pulled a mango.

Makaha Mangoes.

It's a family-run operation run by Candy and Mark Suiso.

Mark has a government job in Honolulu, but he comes home every night and becomes a farmer.

When you sell these, do you differentiate them?

-Yeah.

I will sort it out, and some people can really tell the difference.

So for the chefs, they're looking for certain textures.

They want something soft, they want something that's firm.

As we go through and taste these, I'm sure your wheels will start spinning, "Oh, I know where I can put this one."

-If anyone has the opportunity to sit down and do a horizontal tasting of mangoes, it'll change your perception of mango for the rest of your life.

-The big one in Hawaii is the Haden, right?

That's the big mango.

That's your Haden mango.

And you can always tell a Haden mango because it's got a lot more color to it.

It has a nice fruity smell to it, and it lasts on the shelf pretty well.

You can eat it green, you can eat it half ripe, and you can eat it ripe.

My attitude is, I like it ripe.

And the Haden's got a little bit of acid to it and a little bit of fiber.

-How do you feel about the Haden?

-To me, that's a standard.

-Mm-hmm.

-And to me, to be a good mango, it's got to have a finish.

Now, you want to taste the mango with a finish, this is one we call Excel.

For the people that really know their mangoes, this is the mango that they want.

-Good, huh?

-Oh.

-Mm-hmm.

-That has a finish.

-Yeah.

-It goes on and on and on and on, right?

Like a wine.

What are you tasting here?

You taste a -- You taste a little coconut?

Try that.

You should.

That's what I usually taste when I eat this.

I taste coconut.

-Tropical to me, for sure.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-Mm-hmm.

-Pirie tends to be a lot sweeter.

And the thing with Pirie, it's got almost no fiber in it.

You see how much sweeter that is?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-And it's got a little bit of a lingering... -Yeah, aftertaste.

-Yeah.

-So this is a relatively new tree.

-This mango, we named after my dad.

We call it Reuben.

It's firm like a Haden, but this one tastes like oranges.

-Mmm.

You never told me that.

-Yeah.

Get that citrus bite that comes right up, up front.

But then you still got that flavor.

-You got a little more fiber than some of those.

-Yeah, it has a little bit of fiber in it.

Yeah.

-This is the one.

-Okay, this is the one that smells like flowers, right?

-Candy, your wife, turned me on to this.

-Yeah, the guy went to India and got a whole bunch of seeds and planted it.

And this was his favorite.

You see how it's got that little nipple on it?

So it's not a Pirie.

People confuse it with Pirie, but you notice the smell is so much different, right?

-Yeah.

-And the color of this fruit is really orange.

-Look at that.

Yeah.

-Wow.

-Okay.

Don't let me down.

-Doesn't have the acid, though.

-Mmm.

-Doesn't have the acid, but that's so round a flavor, and juicy.

-It is.

-No show on mango would be complete without including Michelle Karr-Ueoka.

Without a doubt, she is Honolulu's premier pastry chef.

-Thanks.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day.

-Oh, no.

Any time.

It's all about mangoes today.

-Yeah, I'm excited.

-Since it's mango season, we have to have shave ice.

-In Hawaii, shave ice is a staple.

My favorite flavor growing up was rainbow.

Basically in its truest stripped-down form, it's just ice that has been shaved really thin into, like, snow and usually drizzled with super-sweet sugary syrup.

-So growing up, I would go to Waiola Shave Ice.

That was, like, a special treat.

If I was a good girl, my mom or my grandma would take me.

It didn't happen very often, just to let you know.

So when I wanted to do shave ice at the restaurant, I was trying to think how we can make it different.

So combining a lot of my favorite desserts into kind of one.

-Unlike the traditional version, she actually took a selection of Makaha mangoes, all different sorts of flavors, and she kind of made a cuve, a blend of mangoes, until she had the flavor profile she was looking for.

-Instead of me making it, I think it's more fun if you guys get to make your own.

-Yeah.

Even though I'm plant-based, there were ways to make it plant-based for me.

Step one -- tapioca.

-We have haupia tapioca.

My tribute to halo-halo.

Yeah, I just kind of layer it in the cup with a little bit of the tapioca, some fresh mangoes.

So we make mochi, and then we roll it around ice cream like sushi.

-Oh, nice.

-Thanks.

-We're gonna take a scoop of the mango guri guri.

-So, guri guri.

-Yes.

-My dad used to take me to a place in Moiliili called Guri Guri Drive-In, and it wasn't sherbet.

It had a different flavor.

-Some people say it's either evaporated milk or condensed milk.

When I made this, I added a little bit condensed milk, and I added carbonated water, kind of for effervescence.

I don't add any sugar to this because the mangoes itself are so sweet.

We use a refractometer to measure the density of the sugar because if there's too much sugar, it doesn't freeze.

-Oh.

-Just like alcohol.

-Yeah.

-By having all these different types of mangoes, you can play with the different acidity and sweetness levels.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

So do you -- Do you just go all the way through or just mix it up?

-Just go all the way down.

-There's no rules?

-And enjoy all the different textures.

-I could have eaten a bowl this big.

-[ Laughs ] -So good.

-Even though I come from people of the ocean, they sometimes forget about the aina and how important it is to care about the aina.

They don't realize that that affects the ocean because when we get big rain, that all comes down.

So we have to care because we're all connected.

Yeah, it's crazy because I only hear of stories of the whole Hokulea renaissance and the Kaho'olawe, and just, my leaders were a part of that.

And now that I'm of this age, and there's something happening in my lifetime, I am old enough, and I have the power to use my voice and make a difference.

Another reason I'm happy to go plant-based is because of the environmental impact that it leaves in this whole entire world.

Knowing that they're burning the Amazon because of the consumers eating beef, that's pretty disgusting to me.

I think a lot of communities from all over the world can learn from indigenous people.

This has always been going on, and this is what we've always been fighting for, and this is what we've always been trying to preserve.

And I think that could save the world.

-There was a time when almost every yard in Hawaii had a mango tree, often more than one.

These trees represented community, the past, present, and future.

A person's yard was their own personal grocery store with fruits and vegetable gardens.

Today, our habits have changed.

We have come to rely on others to grow and prepare our food.

The world is constantly on the move, and we rely on food that is cheap, convenient, and fast.

But if we slow down and listen, you'll discover there are still ways we can eat healthy and care for our world.

This wisdom resides deeply embedded within our indigenous communities.