Sugar Palm fruit and its Health Benefits

Sugar Palm fruit or Ice-apple

Sugar palm or Toddy palm fruit is also called by the name Palmyra palm. It is called Ice-apple in British English. Palmyra palm tree is the national tree of Cambodia and Borassus flabellifer is the Latin name. It grows in the suitable climate of Southeast Asian countries.

The sweet sap of the Palmyra tree is called Toddy and is used in preparation of Palm jaggery. The sap is fermented to make Arrack which is an alcoholic beverage. Almost every part of the tree is useful to mankind. The fan shaped tall tree bears fruits like that of a coconut tree. The pulp is tender and the husk is fibrous similar to that in Coconut. The fruit has a black husk and is 4 to 7 inches in diameter. It is borne in clusters. The top portion of the fruit is cut off to reveal the three sweet jelly seed sockets.

In many places of India where the Toddy palm trees are grown, the ripened fruit is covered with clay as it falls to the ground and a plant thus gets reproduced. Later the tender shoot popping out of the fruit is boiled, roasted and eaten. The fleshy stems are found to be very nutritious and fibrous.

The ripened pulp of the sugar palm is jelly like tender, flat and round with a light brown skin. The inner portion is a juicy socket structure. It has a mild sweet taste. The pulp or the seeds become harder as they grow older.

Tender Sugar Palm Fruit seeds

Sugar Palm fruit health benefits and Uses:

1. Palm seeds are considered as a delicacy in India and other asian countries where the Palmyra trees are grown. During early summer, they are sold in markets and for a limited period of time. Summer holidays are enjoyed by preparing different types of drinks, pancakes and dishes prepared from the nutritious pulp.
2. The tender fruit pulp is eaten raw during summer because it gives a cooling effect to the body. The ripened fibrous outer layer of the fruit can be eaten raw, boiled, or roasted.
3. The fruit contains vitamin A, B and also Vitamin C in the form of ascorbic acid.
4. It is rich in minerals too. Minerals such as Potassium, Iron, Calcium, Phosphorous and Zinc are found in the fruit.
5. The studies conducted recently to know more about this fruit have given satisfactory results. If the Palmyra trees are grown in large scale commercial farms, it could help solve the world’s malnutrition problem.
6. In some Asian stores they are found in cans but usually they are canned in sugar syrup. Due to the sugar syrup it becomes too sweet.
7. The fresh ones are little crunchy and moderate sweet to taste. They are chopped to small pieces and used in desserts with other variety of fruits like Pineapple, Mangoes, Papaya and offered along with some good flavored ice cream.
8. Matured palm fruit juice is used in making pancakes.
9. The seed sockets of Ice-apple have been the inspiration for some sweets prepared in West Bengal. One such sweet is Jalbhara Sandesh.
10. Its medicinal uses are still unknown to people. The pulp from the mature fruit is used over the skin to cure Dermatitis.
11. Bengalis have perfected the art of preparation of many sweet dishes with the yellowish viscous fluidic substance obtained from a ripe palm fruit. They include the mustard oil fried Taler Bora or the Taalkheer made by mixing it with thickened cow’s milk.

Sugar Palm Fruit Recipes

Recipe of Tender Ice-apple and Coconut water cool drink:

Preparation method:

Take 4 tender Ice-apples and cut them to small pieces. In a bowl, pour 1½ -2 cups of Coconut water as per requirement. Add ½ cup of crushed ice to it. Also add sugar to taste. Mix the ingredients together and garnish it with 4-6 fresh mint leaves.
It is tasty and a very good refreshing cool drink.
Below is another recipe of sweet dish preparation.

Sugar Palm Fruit

 

Sweet dish prepared using Tapioca pearls (Sabudana in Hindi language) and Sugar Palm seeds:

Necessary Ingredients:

1. Small pieces of Sugar Palm seeds - 2 cups
2. Thick Cream milk – 500ml
3. Water – 2 cups
4. Green cardamom crushed – 3
5. Tapioca pearls soaked in water for ½ an hour - ½ cup
6. Cashew nuts – 10 pieces
7. Raisins – 10-12 seeds
8. Ghee – 2 table spoons
9. Sugar - 1 table spoon
10. Soaked, peeled and cut Almonds – 10 seeds
11. Saffron – as required
12. Coconut oil – 1 table spoon

Preparation method:

1.    Pour coconut oil and ghee in a pan and heat it first. Fry the Cardamom, cashew nut pieces, raisin seeds and almond pieces in it.
2.    In the same pan add the creamy milk. Then add water to it and cook Tapioca pearls thoroughly.
3.    As the pearls get cooked add the palm seed pieces, sugar and saffron as required. Mix all the ingredients for 2 minutes and turn off the flame.
4.    Leave it to cool and then refrigerate it for 20 minutes. Serve chilled.

Thailand based companies sell canned Sugar palm fruits online

Some Thailand based companies have websites to sell the fruit in syrup, online. Thai people buy them to use it in recipes of Thai desserts. The pulp or seed is sold as canned fruits in sweet syrup. They are available in tins weighing 500-600g.

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Comments

Jona 2 months ago
The article is really good. The recipe also sounds good.
I just love sugar palm fruit, its soooooo yummmmm......Never knew we cud turn it into a dessert, well mainly because we gulp it as soon as we get it. Never lasts more that 5 minutes to think about making dessert from it. But nowadays we don’t get it that much. If anybody has any idea where to get it fresh (in bulk) please let this fan know.

Pulasan fruit and its health benefits

Pulasan fruit in Malaysia

Pulasan belongs to Sapindaceae family, It is an exotic fruit which originated from Western Malaysia. It grows mostly in lowland forests around Perak The name of the fruit itself suggests twisting. Pulas is to twist in Malay language. So the fruit is opened by twisting the fruit with both hands. The same is done with Rambutan fruit to open.

There are two varieties in this fruit. One is dark red in color and the other one is light red. It is sweeter than Rambutan. The latin name is Nephelium Mutabile, but there are at least 30 other wild species of Nephelium with edible fruits.

Even though they are native to western Malaysia, they are found growing abundantly in Philippines at low elevations from Luzon to Mindanao. In the year 1926, it was planted in Puerto Rico and later also in Costa Rica. It has been recently introduced in Kerala state of India.

Pulasan Fruit

Pulasan - The seasonal fruit of Rambutan family

 

Pulasan fruits are harvested twice in a year. The season of trees flowering is from March-May and August-October. After flowering, the fruits start to mature in 15-18 weeks time. It takes 100-130 days to mature, in warm tropical areas. The first season of fruiting is from July-November and the next one is from March-July. Fruit is harvested in bunches when most of them turn yellow or red color.

The tree can grow to a height of 15m. Trunk grows about 16 inch in diameter. it is an ultra-tropical fruit and thrives only in very humid regions between 360 -1,150 ft altitude. In the Malaya region, the tree bears best after a long, dry season.

Fruit grows in clusters of 3-5. is slightly oval shaped and 2-3 inches in length. The outer skin of the fruit has spiky soft thorns but they are not so sharp. The pulp of the fruit is white or yellowish and translucent. The edible portion is juicy, sweet and aromatic and tastes like a sweet grape. It contains a single seed which has the size and shape of an almond. It is easy to separate the seed from flesh.

The pulasan is often confused with rambutan because it is closely allied with it. The skin is thicker and rougher than Rambutan. Other fruits in the same family are Fijian Longan, Longan and Lychee. Pulasan fruit is also known as rambutan paroh, rambutan-kafri or pening-pening-ramboetan. In Philippines it is called Bulala and Ngoh-khonsan in Thai language.

While packaging they are tied up in bunches. The fruits are generally available on special request at wholesale price in Malaysia but production volume is limited

Health benefits and Uses of Pulasan fruit:

 

1.    The fresh ripe fruit is eaten raw. The flesh is slightly juicy and sweet. The seed is edible and tastes like almond.
2.    Pulasan can be frozen or dried and used to flavor ice cream and puddings. It can also be made into preserves, jams, jellies and sauces.
3.    Gourmet restaurants use Pulasan for their enree dishes and in sauces.
4.    More recently it has been used in tropical juice blends.
5.    The tasty flesh has a sweet grape like taste. It is used in making jam.
6.    A cocoa like beverage is prepared from boiled or roasted seeds.
7.    It reduces the body fat. So it is good for people who are obese.
8.    It makes skin softer and has good use in hair care.
9.    Diabetics can eat this fruit.
10.    The leaves and roots of the Pulasan tree are employed in poultices.
11.    The root decoction is administered as a febrifuge and vermifuge. The roots are boiled with Gleichenia linearis, and the decoction is used for bathing fever patients.
12.    The nutritional value per100g of pulasan fruit : Protein content is 0.82g, Calcium is 0.05mg, Carbohydrate - 16.8g, Fat -0.6g, Iron – 0.002mg, Vitamin C – 10.8mg, Ash content is 0.45g and moisture content is about 90.87%.
13.    The wood is light-red, harder and heavier than that of the Rambutan. It is of excellent quality but rarely available.
14.    The seeds are dried and these seed kernels yield 74.9% of a solid, white fat, which melts at about 104 -107.6º F (40º- 42º C). The oil is a faintly perfumed and could be utilized for making soaps.

Do not forget to taste this exotic fruit of Malaysia.

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Comments

 

Annart  6 months ago from SW England
Hi man, Voted up, useful and interesting. As soon as I looked at it I thought 'lychee', so was pleased to find it's related. Thank you for your follow; I will reciprocate.

Author 6 months ago
Hi annart, thanks for the comment. Its good to know that you learnt something new from the article.

Palm jaggery in India and its Health benefits

Sap extract from Palmyra tree

Palm jaggery is almost like a jaggery that is made out of sugarcane juice. Palm jaggery is made from the sap extract of Palm Trees in Southern India. These trees are also known as Toddy palm trees or Palmyra trees. The Jaggery is processed from the unfermented Palmyra tree sap called Neera in kannada language. It is highly priced due to its medicinal properties. It has an intense, earthy taste or reminiscent of chocolates in its taste.

The palm jaggery obtained after processing is darker and richer in color. It is slight salty to taste but much healthier of the two. Due to its cooling effects over human body, it is of high value. It does not have the bone meal content which is used for whitening processed sugar. The price of the palm jaggery is double that of sugar.

The first extract of the palm juice which is boiled at high temperatures, is being added with a little salt. The added salt then acts as a preservative. This also prevents the jaggery from becoming too sweet. When it gets cooled, it is poured into a long cone made of palm leaves. The preservation of the final product is done by wrapping the cone with rice straws. At home, the consumers finely slice the cone, so that the jaggery is cut into disc shapes leaving a palm ribbon around its edges. Some families simply dry the extracted palm juice on mats. Others do it on lime floors called the kobas. After it dries, the jaggery is being stored in an air-tight container which preserves it for nearly one year.

Healthy Palm Jaggery discs of Dakshina Kannada district

Palm Jaggery in India

People of northern and western India prefer the sugarcane jaggery. But the people of the South, especially the South Kanara district, will not see beyond palm jaggery when it comes to adding this sweet flavoring agent to their home made sweet dishes. In Kannada language, the localites of the south kanara district call it Ole Bella.

Palm jaggery is quite popular in the Southern states of Tamil Nadu (called Karupatti vellam or pana vellam), Karnataka (it is called thaati bella in some places and Olebella in Mangalore, which is believed to be the best), Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

In the south Indian families of the coastal region of Mangalore and also the Keralites of the Malabar coast, palm jaggery has a big role. It is used in the preparation of delicacies like payasams and neyyai appams. Mangaloreans use the same to prepare puddings and sweets. In temples, it is distributed with banana, or a bit of coconut, as prasadam . In the Calcutta city of West Bengal state, it is an important ingredient in sweets like Payeesh, Nalan gurer sandesh and Nalan gurer moa.

Why the palm jaggery has to be fed to the cow?

The body temperature of few hybrid cows fall down after a calf is born. Their neck gets tightened and breathlessness might follow. As per the veterinary doctors, the reason is lack of calcium content in the body. If immediate action is not taken the cow may reach to the coma state. The calcium is supplied to the body in the form of liquid. If palm jaggery is fed to the cow problem gets solved.

Three or four weeks prior to the birth of the calf, 100gm of jaggery is being fed for 5 days. After its birth ¼ kg of jaggery is fed so that there is no calcium deficiency. It is advisable to feed the minerals to the cow, if it is too weak and in unhealthy condition.

Usefulness of Palm jaggery  

•    Palm Jaggery is rich in calcium, iron and other useful vitamins and minerals.
•    One of the tastiest and healthy products. It is used in the preparation of sweet dishes.
•    The medicinal properties in it make it a unique product that can be used by people of all ages.
•    It may be used sufficiently by people who suffer from diabetes.
•    It is used as a substitute of sugar in the preparation of coffee, tea, etc.
•    Panakam or Juice is prepared by adding black pepper and palm jaggery, to a glass of water. Sometimes a pinch of cardomom(elaichi) is also added to get a good flavor and taste.
•    In the South Kanara district region, most of the time it is given to women who give birth to a child. If the mixture of powdered palm jaggery and black jeera are given to such women, then impurities in the breast milk would disappear and baby gets the white and clean milk during breast feeding. Even in the case of milking cows, the same thing is repeated after it gives birth to a calf.

Palm Jaggery sellers at Mangalore

Buy Palm jaggery online:

It is available in websites like weiku.com. Even though nutritional content is far greater than all other commercially available sweeteners, confirm the product quality before buying them online.

Beware of adulterated jaggery

Palm jaggery utilization has spread to the East and West Bengal and the consumption is more in cities of the Bihar state, too. Like most other commodities, the commercial production of jaggery has also been corrupted by the lime addition to create it in larger volumes. In the Southern states, the consumer need not fear of such adulterations, because most families are having the palm plantations. They make their palm jaggery production, at their own houses. They use only the first extract of the palm juice, for this purpose.
Mangaloreans expect the basic ingredients to be available to them all the time. They are discerning eaters. So, they depend on Mangalore stores that have mushroomed all over India. All these stores provide them with Palm jaggery which is finally in the form of hard discs. The sweet dish, payasam prepared at home does not taste good for these people without the palm jaggery.

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Comments

Dreamreachout 2 years ago
Hey, palm jaggery was always available in Calcutta and West Bengal and it is always used to make sweet delicacies including payesh(payesham). In Bengali, it is called "Tal Patali"!!
However, date jaggery is more prefered here and other varieties like sugar-cane etc. are also used.
Thumbs up for highlighting our indigenous savouries!!
Author 2 years ago
Thank you...dreamreachout. I hope that people all over the world might start consuming this product due to its medicinal properties.

Valeriebelew2 years ago from Metro Atlanta, GA, USA
Sounds like an excellent sweetener, tasting good with medicinal properties. I am trying to eat only healthy foods, that contribute something to my health, rather than only taste good. Thanks for this topic. (: v
Author 2 years ago
Hi Valerie...this is indeed an excellent sweetener. But for those people who use sugar daily, might find it little difficult to get adjusted to this new sweetener.

Suny51 2 years ago
Hello Vivek,great one, very informative and takes me back to my stay in South India thats like my second home and still I have my best memories related with the places you have mentioned here and the taste of the stuff, I love it.beautiful.
Author 2 years ago
Thanks for the comment..suny. It's nice to hear from you saying that south India is your second home. I think you have a good experience traveling all over India. Am i right?
Suny51 2 years ago
Vivek,I did my Management from their(Bangaluru,now) and was posted in Belgaum for training for many months,that was fun,I spent more time traveling the places and lesser time in job assigned to me and was transfered to Delhi as a punishment,but I still go to S.India often.
Author 2 years ago
Well, that's fine. Your topic on Kumarparvat shows that you were also active in S.India.

Rls8994 2 years ago from Mississippi
Great health topic! I'm all about being healthy! Did not know about palm jaggery. Thanks for the great information about this.
Author 2 years ago
rls8994...Thanks for the encouraging comment.

indivar reddy 23 months ago
I am happy to find this article as i was interested to know about the palm jaggery and its process. This article cleared all doubts and very informative, thanks for the info Indivar

Lex123 22 months ago
Great information. I was looking for this info, and landed on your article.

Katharella 21 months ago from Lost in America
Is it possible to find the ingredients to make true palm jaggery in America?
Author 21 months ago
I don't know exactly whether you can get this extract of palm tree in the USA. It depends on the species of palm trees that grow in a particular region. Borassus flabellifer is the species grown in India and some parts of Asia.
Please have a look at these pages - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_wine and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borassus_flabellifer.
If this extract is made available in the US, then surely it is possible to make the jaggery at your place.
Katharella 21 months ago from Lost in America
Thank you. There is a grocer by me that specializes in organics that are not at other grocers. I'll copy the wiki pages and take with. Thanks again.

Jwood00 21 months ago from the other side of morning
Interesting topic. I've never heard of this before.

Rudra19 months ago
Didn’t know palm jagerry was so big.
surya 6 months ago
Very informative thank you for such a nice article
Author 6 months ago
Thanks Surya for the comments.

Thumatirajesh 6 months ago
Please Clarify that the Palm Jaggery is not made out of Sugar Cane and it is made out of Palm trees extracts. Am I correct? Thanks for your valuable information. Rajesh
Author 6 months ago
thumatirajesh...Yes, of course it is made out of Palm tree sap and not Sugarcane.

Camille Banche 4 months ago
Yes yes I do know of the Palm Jaggery--we sure gave it to cows and cattle--India is where I was born--USA is where I live.How very wonderful.Glad to have found you all. Super,
Author 4 months ago
Thanks for the comment..Camille. Glad to know that you were born in India. Palm Jaggery is a useful sweetener. But many people outside India have yet to learn about it.

Ramu 4 months ago
You said Palm Jaggery is made of Palm Sap? Sap is nothing but the liquid that oozes out from the palm tree ... Does that mean Palm Jaggery is made out of Toddy (kallu... they call it in Telugu)
Author 4 months ago
Yes, of course. It is made from kallu.

kaavyah 4 months ago
very informative,vivek.But just wanted to know one more thing. Is karupatti high in carbohydrates,like sugar or is it low-carb?
Author 4 months ago from India
Karupatti does not have low concentration of carbohydrates. But better than sugar because it has medicinal properties.

honeybee29 3 months ago
I saw in an online news bulletin that palm tree extract would help people that had strokes. What can you tell me about this?
Author 3 months ago
That property is found in Acai palm and not in this type of Palm.

Wild Jackfruit and its Health benefits

Wild Jackfruit of Moraceae family

Wild Jackfruit also called Wild Jack with latin name Artocarpus hirsutus Lam. belongs to the Moraceae family. It is called Hebbalasu in Kannada, Vadahar in Hindi, Lakucha, Dahu, Adahu, Iravatam, Panasah in Sanskrit, Ranpanas, Pachpanas in Konkani. Anhili, Ayani-maram, Ayani, Anjili, Ayini plavu in Malayalam, Kattupula, Aiyini pala, Kurangu pala, pei pala in Tamil, Pejakai in Tulu and Adavi panasa in Telugu,

Wild Jackfruit

Wild Jackfruit - the tropical evergreen tree
It is a large tropical evergreen tree that grows up to a height of 35-45m and a girth of about 5m or more. It is found at an altitude of  upto1300m in the lush evergreen forest area of peninsular India. The tree prefers a moist atmosphere where rainfall is about 1500mm annually and thrives in deciduous to partially evergreen woodlands. It grows in many parts of Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu states. Endemic to the Malabar, south and central parts of Western ghats and Maharashtra Sahyadris.

It is easily distinguished from the common jack fruit - Artocarpus heterophyllus, by the smaller sized edible fruits. The fruits are syncarps and very sweet. Outer color of the bark is grayish but the inner color is blackish brown. Has straight clean stem as well as dense foliage. Male head narrow and cylindrical, female heads quite simple. The leaves are of dark green color and shaped elliptic rhomboid or ovate in mature trees and they are deeply lobed on younger ones. The simple, alternate leaves ooze out latex if broken.

Seeds are long and ovoid in shape. The structure is similar to that of the much larger jackfruit. Outer look of the fruit is subglobose or ellipsoid with long echinate and yellowish green or yellow color. The inner edible part is smaller, thinner and about the size of a lemon, orange hued when ripe and ovoid. The trees are distributed all over southern parts of India. It grows in areas where there is heavy rainfall probably 175cm.The wood is strong and light which is the main advantage. The grains are interlocked and even textured with blackish brown color. Flowering occurs in axillary inflorescence and are unisexual, male and female flowers are present in a single tree. Mode of propagation is by the seeds, cutting and air layers.

Uses and health benefits of Wild Jackfruit

Almost all parts of the tree are useful in many ways.
1. The fruits are usually used as an appetizer and ingredient in snacks.
2. They are stored in jars adding salt after removing the outer skin. They are used in preparing chutney.
3. The timber obtained and the ripe fruits are locally traded. The wood is harvested usually for the house construction, boat building, furniture making, etc. In the Malabar coast, it is used to build house boats and racing boats. Rice pounding and de-husking was done in the wooden de-huskers made of the same wood in ancient times. Body building material for trucks and wheels in irrigation are still made of this wood in some places of South west India.
4. The heart wood is stronger and contains all type of flavonoids except norartocarpin.
5. Powdered bark is used in healing sores.
6. Dry leaves are useful in treatment of bubose and hydrocele.
7. Leaves are useful fodder for elephants.
8. The seeds are powdered and mixed with honey for the treatment of asthma.
9. An infusion of the bark is applied over the skin to cure pimples and cracks.
10. In Ayurvedic medicine, the wild jack plant pacifies vitiated vata(air quality present within the human body) and pitta(bile within the body), anorexia, burning sensation and sexual weakness. Unripe fruit cause vitiation of tridosha (the 3 type of substances that are significant in balancing the human body build up and health according to ayurveda. Vata- the wind, pitta- the bile, kapha- the phlegm are tridoshas) and rakta(blood), and cause indigestion as well as impotency. Ripe fruits are cooling in nature and aphrodisiac. Bark has the properties to cure ulcers, diarrhea and pimples.
11. For skin diseases, fresh seeds of hirsutus are boiled in water and kept in container for a day. The oil that appears on the top surface is collected. Water content in the oil is removed after boiling it repeatedly. This oil is applied externally on the affected parts.
12. The cost of timber is very high. The tree is felled only after 25 years of growth. But according to some experts, it is good to use for commercial use only after 50 years of full growth. Every seed that falls off from the fruit is of great value.

Unripe fruits have qualities like aphrodisiac, sweet, astringent, thermogenic, sour, indigestible, constipating and can cause flatulence.

Diseases that trouble Wild Jackfruit tree

 

The attack of diseases to Artocarpus hirsutus in South India (Kerala state) are the Pink disease (Corticium salmonicolor) and Macrophomina leaf spot (Macrophomina phaseolina).

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Comments

Dinkan53 5 months ago from India

Wild jackfruit is known as chambol in south Asia I think. In Tamil Mull Narai Pazham may be. It is an exotic fruit, But rarely used by the people now especially in Kerala. But it is widely used in the preparation of Ayurvedic medicines. Thanks for sharing such an informative article. Rated as interesting.

Author 5 months ago from India Author

Hi dinkan53..Thanks for encouraging me with a good comment. It is available in the local vegetable market during the month of March and April i.e. summer season. Sometimes slightly sour to taste but I always think of the medicinal values of the fruit first.