0
The Hemp Vegetable
Posted on Sunday, 11 June 2017
The “Hemp” Vegetable
By Apolinario Villalobos
The “hemp” vegetable is popularly known in the Philippines
as “saluyot” among the Tagalogs and “tagabang” among the Visayans. I swear to
its preventive values against diabetes. For several years now that I have been
eating plenty of the vegetable the sugar in my blood has been consistently
maintained in its normal level. The fibers of the vegetable also make it easy
for me to move my bowels.
Foremost reason why many Filipinos do not want to eat the
vegetable is its slimy broth that results when cooked. The remedy is by adding
a little vinegar or several drops of lemon or kalamansi, as the acidity
prevents the juice of the vegetable to become slimy.
There is a big market for the vegetable, especially, in
Japan. Big tracks of land are planted with saluyot for its leaves that are
processed for the juice that is mixed with flavors to become a delightful
medicinal bottled drink, just like the aloe vera juice.
The vegetable can be cooked simply as “paksiw” in which a
little vinegar and slices of ginger are added, the way “fish paksiw” is cooked.
It can also be stir-fried and flavored with canned sardines, flaked smoked
fish, or just tomatoes and onions. Other optional culinary use of the vegetable
are:
·
Sauce thickener for kare-kare
·
Extender for the Visayan “laswa” and “law-uy”
dishes
·
Important ingredient for the veggie combo that
includes thin slivers of bamboo shoots, corn, okra, fresh shrimp or crab and
cooked optionally in coconut milk
·
Essential ingredient for the “pinakbet” and
“dinengdeng”
·
Steamed and dipped in fish sauce it becomes
appetizer best eaten with fried or grilled fish or fried dried fish.
The
vegetable is of various varieties with the most popular being the short one,
barely two feet in height and widely sold in the local market. But left to grow
further, it could reach the height of a shrub. In the Middle East, it is
popularly used to thicken the sauce of chicken casserole.
Hemp
is the generic name of the vegetable because a sturdy variety is being used in
making “hemp rope” characterized by twined strong fibers, akin to the “abaca
hemp”, the source of which is related to banana plant.
With
the onslaught of diabetes today due to the proliferation of unhealthy western
foods, simply called “junk food”, and which is considered as harbinger of other
diseases, my advice is the inclusion of the vegetable in the daily diet. Forget
the slimy juice…just think of it as another kind of medicine, some of which are
even bitter. One has a choice between the cheap prevention from the lowly
“saluyot” or the development of the dreadful diabetes that could result to
other diseases resulting further, to the devastation of budget. Remember:
prevention is better than cure.
