Mohana Gill: Malaysia’s Vegetarian Culinary Artist

For Malaysia-based Mohana Gill, healthy eating is not just a family mantra – it has reached beyond to all ages through her books and cookery classes. Her mantra to staying fit is guided through a predominantly vegetarian diet comprising fruit, flowers and vegetables.

I first met this youthful looking, health-conscious lady in 2008 in Singapore. Now, 16 years later, Mohana Gill proudly boasts of her 89+ years, while looking a decade or two less. She stresses, “Suddenly I am in a rush. Have so much more to do and share.”

Mohana has spread her passion through her abundant cookbooks, culinary classes, and interactive meetings. Among her portfolio, the most renowned title is the Hayley’s series. This highly popular, multi-award winner, features Hayley – a young girl, fascinated by the world of fruit, flowers and vegetables.

“When I started these, I decided to use my Australia based-granddaughter, Aheli, now 17, as an icon to get children interested in the food and fruit they eat. Aheli became Hayley, a more acceptable name internationally. After the first Hayley’s Fantastic Garden (2010), the other 10 titles followed. My grandson Ari, born in 2016, when four, asked me why he was not included in my books. I then created a character representing him in Hayley’s Awesome Malaysian Animals, Hayley’s Flowerlicious Malaysia, and the latest, Hayley’s Moringalicious Malaysia.”  Mohana’s passion for moringa has almost made her it’s brand ambassador in her country.

She continues, “From the time Ari was little, he has been deeply involved with my photoshoots, including a YouTube channel — Hayley’s Happylicious Corner — and about a dozen cookery videos. Significantly, he always has his opinions. Now Ari’s school commitments keep him busy. Working with him has given me a deeper insight into how children think, perceive, and react to things.”

Next came Fruitastica! and Vegemania!, colourful, with easy-to-follow recipes that tempt the reader to start cooking immediately. The fruits, flowers and vegetables are global. Describing their origin and benefits, Mohana uses them in every form — smoothies, juices, soups, salads, main courses, relishes, desserts and sorbets. Fruitastica! includes exotic dishes like the peach soup and strawberries with almond dumplings and baked curried fruit. This title was proclaimed Best Single Subject Cookbook and Best Health and Nutrition Cookbook at the 2006 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. It was the winner of the Special Jury Award for Best in the World 2006, and the recipient of Best Vegetarian Book in the World at Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2007. Vegemania! declared Best Vegetarian Book in the World 2007, travels around the globe with Japanese nori rolls, Burmese khauk-swe, Thai black rice pudding, Malay nasi ulam, Nepalese momos, Indian tandoori tofu, Italian polenta pie, and quinoa pilaf from the kitchen of the extinct Incas.

Mohana Gill considers participating in the 14^th Jaipur Literature Festival in 2021, titled ‘Food for the Soul’, as “An exhilarating experience providing me another platform, and interacting with the experienced and well-known Suvir Saran and Tanya Thomas about, what else but, food!”

In 2022, Leela a coffee table book was published by daughter Mohana as a tribute to her mother’s life’s journey traversing from pre-war Burma (Myanmar) to the Canadian Rockies and America. 

Mohana’s maxim is, “Our lives are not in the hands of the Gods — but in the hands of our cooks.” Her four Fruitastic! mantras are, “First, it’s a myth that healthy eating is boring. It can be vibrant, delicious, and you can eat as much as you want.” Secondly, “Incorporating healthy eating means you don’t need to worry about your daily vitamins and fibres.” Thirdly, “With the right recipes and information, cooking healthier can be very enjoyable.” And, “Fourthly, it’s easy and fast to prepare.”

The personal Daily Food Diary of Mohana Gill, starts with a glass of fresh fruits and vegetables juice. “Lunch is usually a fruit-and-vegetable salad, salsa, and either soup with a wholemeal sandwich or pasta including grains and nuts. Dinners for the Gill family are typically Indian, alternating with Burmese, Chinese, Mexican, Thai, Malay or Italian. Their distinct likes and dislikes results in preparing their favourites by rotation, but over the years they have learnt to enjoy each other’s choices, and increasingly supplement non-vegetarian dishes with more veggies. Her husband Satwant is the easiest to feed!

Mohana became conscious about eating healthy in the mid-1970s, after her children — Sanjeev, 56, Anil, 53 and Rakesh, 52 — were born. They were never given bottled baby foods off supermarket shelves. Every meal was home cooked. A weekly family ‘baking day’ involved the boys from a very young age. They participated enthusiastically, making more of a mess, than actually baking cakes and cookies, but it generated their interest in food. The Gill family in Australia are vegetarians, while those in Kuala Lumpur are flexitarians, they consume more fruit and vegetables.

For Satwant, an anti-ageing advocate and an avid reader, preventing diseases means healthy living, exercising and good eating habits. As an avid gardener, he has assured a range of vegetables, and fruit trees like mangosteen, starfruit, guava, papaya, coconuts and rambutan, mulberry, passion fruit, and now moringa, which has resulted in another award winner, Moringalicious – Malaysia‘s Gift to the World.

Before Mohana decided to write her books, the diversity in shapes, colours, textures and flavours of her subject attracted her. Research created awareness of their intrinsic value. “Every fruit and vegetable has some worth, so I am not pedantic about the ‘nutritional content’. I believe in enjoying the flavours and making a conscious effort to include these at every meal.”

Mohana assures that one doesn’t have to change one’s eating habits overnight. “Go with a practice that becomes a part of your lifestyle. Incorporate five intakes of fruits and vegetables daily. Begin with a fruit smoothie, raisins for a mid-morning snack, vegetables for lunch, nuts or fruit with tea, instead of biscuits and snacks, and vegetables and fruit with your dinner. Soon this gentle intake will become a ritual.”

In 2008 Fruitastic! Express, a fresh juice bar, opened in Assunta Hospital, Petaling Jaya, in suburban Kuala Lumpur. During its seven years, a new menu for children was introduced, plus healthy, satisfying experience food service to inpatients and outpatients and even outsiders.

Children’s cooking classes have been held since 2011 in Malaysia, Jakarta, Dubai and China. “Initially, we educated the mothers that ‘we are what we eat’, so junk food to children was reduced. Hayley’s books are enticing and persuade children to eat more fruits and vegetables by making it a fun thing. Interactive, with no real cooking sessions involve making salads, fruit skewers, watermelon pizza and bananas in pajamas and much more.

Mohana Gill advises, “Mix and match fruits and vegetables that grab your fancy — and what is available around you. It is like a painting. I am providing the canvas, colours, and brush, and you can paint anything that you fancy. If it is done with passion, it is bound to taste delicious!”

Meanwhile, the multiple award winner continues to move forward with many other ideas brewing in her active brain, so as to make more people around the Universe aware of the advantages of being vegetarian.