Earth News

farmeric August 21st, 2010

Under the program dubbed “Utanon Kada Balay”, the DA through its CARAGA Regional Office aims to provide every household with vegetable seedlings or planting material to come up with their own backyard vegetable garden for their persona consumption, as well as feed of their animals such as goats, pigs, chickens or ducks

In 2007, the Department of Agriculture in Caraga distributed 300,000 malunggay seedlings to 100,000 families to help mitigate hunger, fight poverty, and solve the growing problem of malnutrition in the region.

CARAGA, an impoverished region of Mindanao, is considered a priority area because of the high incidence of hunger, as well as malnutrition among pregnant women and children.

The program was established to help promote malunggay culture and thus help boost the national campaign against hunger and poverty.

CARAGA, covers the provinces of Agusan del Sur, Agusan del Norte, Surigao del Sur and Surigao del Norte.

Tags: fight poverty, malunggay, moringga

• Food , Health , Natural Cures , Plants , malunggay
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farmeric August 20th, 2010

Malunggay,according to former Agriculture Secretary Arthuro Yap, has many agri-busi- ness potential, explaining why there is a need for farmers to venture into malunggay farming. He gave credit to the DA-BPO led by Director Alicia Ilaga for aggressively promoting the backyard as well as commercial planting or cultivation of the nutritious vegetable tree crop, making it malunggay one of the country’s chief vegetables.

YAP cited the DA’s Malunggay Agri-Biotechnology Program as the model of the research, development and extension component the DA’s program.

“If coconut is the tree of life, the malunggay is the miracle tree,” he said. Yap said malunggay has many agri- business potentials which can help fight hunger and poverty and increase farmers’ income, as well.

Powdered malunggay can be used to fortify noodles, soup or bread with vitamins and minerals of the nutritious vegetable while its seeds, which can produce all-purpose oil, can be used by industries for products like soap, shampoo, lotion and other personal health-care products.

It can also be an alternative source of Continue Reading »

Tags: health benefits, malunggay, moringga, traditional medicine

• Environment , Food , Health , Herbal , Plants , Uncategorized , malunggay
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farmeric August 18th, 2010

Pacquiao, who prefers to use the moniker given to him by the Americans, which as everyone knows came from a video game character immensely popular in the 80s, known for devouring everything in its way, has devoured every fighter who crossed his path.

Pacquiao, who boxed his way to fame and fortune and into the hearts of this country’s citizens desperate for heroes, reportedly feasted on malunggay-filled tinola prepared by his trainer before his fights.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) has said time and again that pound for pound, malunggay is the most nutritious vegetable this side of the planet, rich in every known nutrient. It also wages war against free radicals that impair metabolism.

DA said that the Medical College in Kolkota, India, found out that malunggay can help in the treatment of female reproductive disorders like epithelial ovarian cancer.

Philippine folklore says that malunggay can also help men with low sperm count.

Known scientifically as Moringa oleifera Lamk, malunggay is also believed to be a natural energy booster.

It is a given that malunggay, with all its nutrients, helped Paquiao beat his opponents.

With the vast commercial opportunities that come with the “miracle vegetable,” our people just might rally behind it, be more productive, earn, have food on the table, be truly united, and help each other live a better life.

It’s hard to unite when one is poor and hungry, but there is one ingredient in the meal of the destitute that has all the nutritive values absent in the meals of the super rich, and that is malunggay.

Of course, for the greedy there will never be enough. No amount of malunggay-laced tinola can remedy that problem.

Tags: malunggay, manny pacquiao, moringga

• Food , Health , Herbal , Natural Cures , Plants , Sports and Fun , Uncategorized , malunggay
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farmeric November 6th, 2009

This is a story as told by Dr. Vivencio Mamaril, a member of the Bureau of Plant Industry Biotech Core Team.

Among the vegetables we eat, malunggay has already earned various tags- healthiest vegetable, a miracle tree, lowly but high in nutrition, and many others. It’s now even tagged as the most healthiest food and miracle food as well.

Malunggay Vitamins and Minerals

There must be something and someone in malunggay that made it as the most popular vegetable in the country today.

Here comes the story, as it happened and is happening before Dr. Vivencio Mamaril very own eyes.

The basic, malunggay has seven times in amount of vitamin C as compared with orange fruit, four times the calcium in milk, four times the vitamin A in carrot and three times the potassium in banana.

According to Dr. Mamaril, it has been so long time that we were not aware of the vitamins and other nutrients malunggay can provide not until the Department of Agriculture (DA) made some noise about malunggay.

The Department of Agriculture (DA), through its Biotechnology Program Implementation Unit, were surprised to learned that there is a business enterprise that is much interested to buy malunggay foliage and seeds. The demand for foliage and seeds is so huge that no single grower or an aggregate of growers can fill the demand.

The truth is, there are no malunggay growers who can produce seeds and foliage in great quantity, and there is no existing technology for it as well. Due to this challenge, Continue Reading »

Tags: malunggay, malunggay recipe, malunggay vegetables, Moringa Recipe

• Environment , Food , Health , Herbal , Plants , malunggay
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farmeric June 28th, 2009

Malunggay tea processing is the method in which the leaves from Moringa oleifera are transformed into the dried leaves for brewing. Malunggay tea is considered a dietary source of important vitamins and minerals.  Tea from malunggay is a healthy drink and contains a higher level of polyphenols (flavonoids), which are known for anti-oxidant activity.

Harvesting and collection of leaves for drying. Harvesting is done by picking 2-3 younger green leaves and with no signs of yellowing of the compound leaves with snap.  Collected leaves are placed in a tray before transporting them in a drying shade.

Sorting and cleaning. Immediately after harvesting, collected leaves are cleaned and sorted out with un-necessary materials such as dust and laid out in a in a plastic tray or basket with 2-3 cm. fine mesh.

Air-drying. Air drying will last with in 2-3 days in a shade house and not sun dry for this will affect the quality of the tea if it is exposed to sun.  The tea leaves will begin to wilt soon after picking, with a gradual onset of enzymatic oxidation. Air drying is used to remove excess water from the leaves and allows a very light amount of oxidation. The leaves can be left in a cool breezy room to pull moisture out from the leaves. The leaves sometimes lose more of their weight in water during wilting. Continue Reading »

Tags: allergies, coconut oil, flower, fruit, Health, Herbal, herbs, honey, malunggay, medicines, Plants, seeds, sickness, tea, treat, vitamins, worms, wound

• Environment , Food , Health , Herbal , Plants
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farmeric August 24th, 2008

Pastillas image from bulacan.gov.ph

Pastillas

Ingredients:

• 2 cups malunggay leaves (freshly boiled)
• 1 cup camote (cooked and mashed)
• 1 cup condensed milk
• 1 tbsp. vanilla (optional)

Procedure: Continue Reading »

Tags: dr. lorma valera, malunggay, malunggay recipe, pastillas, polvoron, sasmuan polvoron

• Food , Health , Plants
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farmeric August 12th, 2008

My family and I were on our way to the North (Philippines) over the weekend when we passed by a kilometer fields of Malunggay. While passing this fertile lands, it reminds me of Dr. Lorma Valera who hailed from that place (Ilocos Region) - who pioneered the processing of malunggay way back in 1993. She actually formulated her various malunggay recipes back in 1987.

This is very timely because some of the readers of EarthNews here at PinayMom.org are requesting about malunggay noodles’ recipe. Dr. Valera’s recipes have been introduced in Metro Manila (Philippines) through Continue Reading »

Tags: malunggay, malunggay noodles, malunggay recipe, moringa, uses of malunggay

• Food , Health , Herbal , Plants , Uncategorized
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farmeric July 21st, 2008

Scientific Knowledge

Today, scientists are beginning to investigate the traditional claims about Malunggay. Let’s take a look at what they have found.

Nutritional Value

One aspect that scientists have examined is the nutritional value of Malunggay leaves.

Nutritional analysis has shown that Moringa leaves are extremely nutritious. In fact, they contain larger amounts of several important nutrients than the common foods often associated with these nutrients. These include vitamin C, which fights a host of illnesses including colds and flu; vitamin A, which acts as a shield against eye disease, skin disease, Continue Reading »

Tags: malunggay, nutritional value, uses of malunggay, vitamins from malunggay

• Health , Plants , Uncategorized
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farmeric June 17th, 2008

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes. - Goethe

These leaves could save million of lives. These tiny leaves have the potential to save million of people on our planet. What kind of leaves are they?

They are the leaves of of the humble Malunggay (moringa) tree. The scientific name is Moringa oleifera. It is said that the Malunggay tree originated in Northern India. Record shows Malunggay being used in Indian medicine some 5,000 years ago. Continue Reading »

Tags: malunggay, malunggay leaves, malunggay production, medicinal value, moringa, moringa oleifera, nutritional value, uses of malunggay

• Environment , Food , Health , Herbal , Plants , Uncategorized
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farmeric March 11th, 2008

A 4-man team of graduating MBA students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), visited the Philippines to study the wide-scale production of Malunggay (Moringa). They presented their study in a forum organized by the Department of Agriculture on the 17th of January 2008. In their presentation, they recommended that it is now the right time for the Philippines to position the country as the main source of malunggay in international trade,or some other country will do it.

I’ve received some emails from the readers of this website asking me on how to plant a malunggay. Although we have 2 malunggays in our backyard, which we planted as we what we are accustomed and that is through stem cutting, I really don’t have any idea on how to plant malunggay for a mass scale production. Since I have started an article about malunggay , I guess I owe something to the readers and so I did my own research. Continue Reading »

Tags: herb, how to plant malunggay, malunggay, malunggay production, malunggay seeds, medicinal, moringa, plant, plant malunggay

• Herbal , Plants
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