Malunggay-based ice cream. Malunggay pretzel.
These are among the new “flavors of Ilocandia” made by the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU), a multi-campus institution in Ilocos Norte.
In a recent research forum in Alaminos City (Pangasinan), MMSU president Dr. Miriam Pascua told this writer that MMSU food technologistS continue to refine the malunggay ice cream.
A malunggay pretzel is also in the offing, she added.
The university had earlier ventured into the production of ice cream out of garlic and squash because of their medicinal and nutritional properties.
Garlic, for instance, has been said to cure common colds, high fever, high blood pressure, rheumatism, wounds, respiratory problems, toothaches, whopping cough, snake bites, and baldness. It also works as an aphrodisiac.
Dr. Lorna Valora of the MMSU College of Technology in Laoag City told this writer years back that the MMSU-CT began making malunggay ice cream in the 1990s. There were times, she recalled, when malunggay ice cream was served in some functions in Malacañang during the term of President Fidel V. Ramos.
Why the craze over malunggay (English names moringe; scientific name, Moringa cleifera)?
• Its leaves and fruits have more calcium, iron, and vitamins than those of other vegetables. They also have “good cholesterol” (high density lipoprotein or HDL).
• Two hundred grams of fresh malunggay leaves are as nutritious as four eggs and two grams of milk.
• Malunggay contains 700 percent more than the Vitamin C of oranges, 400 percent higher than the Vitamin A of carrots, twice the protein and four times the calcium found in milk, and thrice the potassium in banana.
Indeed, R&D has considerably broadened the horizons of malunggay, once an ordinary “vegetable tree” commonly seen in backyards or as a “fence plant”.
At best, it has become a “superstar” and “now darling of food nutritionists”.
For instance, in the Oct. 2-6, Agrilink-Foodlink at the World Trade Center in Pasay City, one session (Oct. 6) will be devoted to malunggay.
Malunggay leaves commonly form part of the popular Ilocano “dinengdeng” (a mix of vegetables with either chicken, pork, or fish). The young flowers and fruits can be consumed as salad.
Commercially, its seed is mostly (about 40 percent) oil that can be used for water purification and massage since it has anti-oxidant properties. They can also be used for treatment of arthritis, rheumatism, gout, cramps, boils, urinary problems, and sexually transmitted diseases, according to experts.
Owing to malunggay’s many uses, the Department of Agriculture (DA), through the initiative of Secretary Arthur C. Yap, has listed it as a means to increase farmers’ income and reduce malnutrition among the people.
DA and its Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) are now encouraging government and private entities to collaborate in pushing the wider cultivation and processing of malunggay. These include the Department of Health (DOH) and Department of Science and Technology (DOST), DA Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), National Nutrition Council (NNC), Nutrition Council of the Philippines (NCP), and Secure Philippines, Inc.
Former DA Secretary Domingo Panganiban, now NAPC top official, has likewise set in motion a program that would encourage poor people in the 10 poorest provinces to plant malunggay.
DA’s Biotechnology Program headed by Director Alice Ilaga has launched an information drive to make the people aware of its economic and health values.
Indeed, malunggay’s road to “full vegetable stardom” is wide open. – With Marianne Go