Be healthy, drink vinegar

Ever thought of drinking vinegar?

Try cider vinegar, which tastes like red wine and promises a multitude of health benefits when taken regularly.

Tony A. Arevalo, a broadcast journalist and a gastronomic expert, says red wine vinegar is a fad in the US, particularly apple cider vinegar or fermented apple juice often made sparkling by fermentation in a sealed container.

But since apples don’t grow here, he experimented with different local fruits such as santol, guyabano, banana, sugar cane and even kamias. Neither one tasted close to apple cider vinegar, though.

In 1998, while hosting a barangay-oriented radio show in a local radio station, a group of provincial barangay chairmen suggested as alternative the plant bignay or Herbert River Cherry.

He mixed the fermented bignay with the juice of local root crops such as onions, garlic, luya, extracts from saluyot and the local aromatic grass tanglad, and other herbal produce.

Thus was born the all-natural wild berry cider vinegar, which Arevalo claims can be an effective anti-oxidant and immune system booster and can be a help to a host of human maladies such as asthma, diabetes, high blood, kidney problem, headache, toothache, blood circulation and others.

Quoting researches of vinegar gurus, Arevalo says red wine vinegar contains polyphenols, which are naturally occurring compounds that act as powerful antioxidants, enzymes that protect the body by  trapping the free-radical molecules and getting rid of them before damage occurs.

During the same year, he also concocted the strawberry cider as strawberries abound in Baguio.

“We have this misconception that vinegars are solely used as seasoning or food condiment and not to be gulped down,” Arevalo pointed out. “The sweet-tasting wild berry and strawberry ciders, however, will bring to rest this false impression.”

As an all-natural tonic drink, these wonder vinegars can be taken as is or diluted with water, and can even be taken as a refreshing drink with sugar and cold water.

You can even mix these ciders with your cooking preparations or you can even dab it on your face as a facial scrub.

Arevalo requested that the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) to go easy on backyard and novel industries to give a chance for small entrepreneurs to go into business.

Not all infant businesses can afford to put up a plant or a modest factory required by the BFAD, he stressed.