MUSINGS | Friday, Dec 7 2018
One of the reasons why I support the Free Tree Society (I’m a life member) is because I advocate a Whole Food Plant Based Way of Eating (WFPB WOE). As a gardener, I design and maintain foodscapes (edible landscapes), meaning I grow only food plants - no time for bunga kertas, orchids and other ornamentals.
The more I learn about human nutrition, the more I realise how important it is for our food to be pesticide- and chemical-free and how plant- based whole foods are vital for our health and well-being. Whole food means unprocessed, unrefined natural plant-based foods. So no flours, oils, sugar and alcohol. From a biochemical and metabolic point of view, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, gula melaka (jaggery powder) are all just as bad as white sucrose crystals (aka evaporated sugarcane juice), i.e. white sugar.
Eating fruits, where nutritients such as fructose, oils, proteins, dietary fibre (soluble and insoluble), antioxidants, polyphenols and etc. exist in a three-dimensional matrix that takes time to be unpacked and utilised by our digestive tract has a very different metabolic impact and insulin impact than consuming refined sugar.
Gula melaka doesn’t come from Melaka, by the way, most of the jaggery powder consumed in Malaysia is imported in gunny sacks from Tamil Nadu. Gunny sacks are made from industrial hemp, the same species (Cannabis sativa) as marijuana. Recreational cannabis has been selectively bred to contain more tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a psychoactive hallucinogen than cannabidiol (CBD) - CBD is the C in THC. CBD not only negates the psychoactive effects of THC but also has beneficial health effects in its own right. Hemp seeds you buy in the organic section of supermarkets are from industrial hemp. Unfortunately, the hemp seeds are already hulled and milled, and are no longer viable - or else, I would have planted them long ago! Its a species endemic to our Southeast Asian equitorial habitat.
Talking about melaka, the melaka tree is amla (amalaki in Sanskrit) aka the Indian gooseberry, Phyllanthus emblica, although also quite commonly referred to by its synonym,
Emblica officinalis Gaertn.
I have found two cordials that contain amla in my local kedai runcit India, one has hibiscus in it and the other is a traditional ayuredic preparation called Triphala juice. It says “juice,” but its really a cordial. One of the other ingredients is Hemidesmus indicus (Indian saraparilla) and so triphala juice does taste like sarsi.
Apparently, you can buy fresh amla fruits from Klang market. Must ask my Indian friends in Klang to get for me. I need to plant a melaka tree in my foodscape.
A friend just brought me terap (Artocarpus odoratissimus
seeds from Sabah. Unlike the wild Semenanjung terap only fit for monkeys, the cultivars from Borneo have been selectively bred for sweetness and texture for generations.
Copyright 2003-2018 Azlan Adnan. This blog post is sponsored by The Green Party of Malaysia
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