Treasures for the heart

Appropriately for February, I recently discovered some hidden treasures for the heart.

I was researching for a book on food and nutrition that I’m finishing with a Dutch co-author and found a reference to the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) having a joint project with Unilever, suggesting that this was inappropriate because of a possible conflict of interest.

I was intrigued and did an online search for the calendars. I found an FNRI website with downloadable e-copies from the last 10 years or so. Each year, the FNRI has been producing these calendars with a specific theme, for example, supplementary feeding for children (2014), nutritious meals during emergency periods (2015), adolescent nutrition (2016), and for 2024, “delights for your heart.”

They were actually quite well produced. I thought the joint productions with Unilever, which extended only until 2015, would be filled with endorsements of Unilever products but that was not the case; in fact, there was no mention of any Unilever product.

All the calendars feature a recipe per month, with nutritional information. In recent years, the recipes include the cost per serving of the meal, with an orientation to have low-cost ones. Also useful have been weekly planners, plotting out what can be served each day of the week.

I was amused with the 2019 calendar, whose focus was “men in uniform” but before you go “yum yum,” this should take away your appetite: the calendar cites figures from a 2012 survey among Philippine National Police members in Camp Crame: 52 percent were found overweight and 9 percent were obese. No wonder they can’t run after criminals.The recipes are usually healthy but I worry about some, like one from that men in uniform issue: instant noodles with veggies and egg. The calendar had a matrix giving the main ingredients for their recipes plus substitutes. For this particular one, the “substitutes” were different flavors of instant noodles when you can actually buy freshly made noodles even in wet markets.

Besides recipes, the 2024 heart health calendar featured practical advice on preventing hypertension, including a blood pressure monitoring chart and some discussion of DASH or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, which included lifestyle changes.

My favorite calendar was the one for 2012, featuring indigenous Filipino vegetables. See if you can identify any of these vegetables: alukon, kadyos, katuray, kulitis, labong, pako, pipino, sigarilyas, sitaw, talinum, talong, upo. Alukon (himbaba-o) is particularly favored among Ilokanos; by coincidence, I’m doing this column in Tuguegarao early in the morning, two hours after an earthquake rocked Calayan, one of the island municipalities.

The 2015 calendar was for food during extended emergency periods, with recipes like veggie arroz con pollo, without the pollo (chicken), of course. I did feel one recipe wasn’t quite right for extended emergencies: sautéed kamote with luncheon meat (spam?).

Sadly, fruits tend to be weakly promoted and there was one year where the FNRI seemed to have run out of fruits to feature. Look at what was recommended over a year: papaya, pineapple, mango, lakatan bananas, apple, pear, pineapple, papaya, grapes, pear, apple. But then maybe the selections reflected the sad realities of imported fruits becoming more accessible than local ones, in terms of price.

The calendars do try hard to promote local recipes. I appreciated the recipe for tahure: tokwa (bean curd), ginger, black pepper, white vinegar, soy sauce, with the comment that this had lower sodium than store-bought items.

Beans are pushed to be high in protein, iron, and potassium. Lemongrass (tanglad) is described as a diuretic (inducing urination) that removes excess sodium. Seaweeds are mentioned as having potassium, but I think they should have also mentioned that many seaweeds have high calcium. In fact, I would suggest FNRI discusses seaweeds more in future calendars. Not too many recipes though because they don’t have to be cooked.

All these calendars are really hidden treasures and you will find the uploaded calendars from previous years to still be useful. I will not forget the recipe for dalandan chicken skewers; you can also call it dalandan chicken kebab, where the marinade is based on dalandan juice. I don’t eat meat but I’m going to check if the dalandan marinade works for vegetables and fish.

It’s a pity the FNRI menu calendars have such limited circulation. With enough ethical safeguards, I would think Unilever and other companies can come in to fund the printing and distribution of more calendars, and in local languages. The existing ones have mostly English text. It was heartening to find one Tagalog article on reducing salt, including avoiding bouillon cubes and powdered or liquid flavor enhancers. It was also specific in recommending “herbs and spices” instead of (table) salt and vetsin.

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