About GAC Fruit
The majority of Indonesian people think of gac as a new fruit from Vietnam. Because in Vietnam and Indochina in general, gac fruit is cultivated commercially. In addition to fresh consumption, gac also beverage agro-industry, and cosmetics. Though gac fruit also exist in Indonesia, including Java. Gac spread from South China, Indochina, to Indonesia and North Australia.
In Indonesia, the fruit of gac (Momordica cochinchinensis) is called 'tepurang, pupia, pakurebu, teruah and torobuk'. In English gac is called red melon, baby jackfruit, spiny bitter gourd, sweet gourd, and cochinchin gourd. Gac is still a single genus with bitter (bitter) pariah (Momordica charantia). The difference, gac fruit is round or oval-sized as big as rugby ball. The fruit skin is tough with a toothed surface, brownish-green, then reddish orange when ripe. Another with pariah, gac fruit is never used as a vegetable in a way harvested young.
In Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, the gacs will be kept until old, until the color of the fruit skin is gradually flushed or orange. Correspondingly, this raw hard flesh will become soft, and the inside is hollow. When opened, inside the fruit will appear seeds with a blood-red pulp layer as in the pari pulp.
Pulp is used as a health drink, food coloring, and cosmetics. The aroma of the pulp is not too sharp, but lasts long enough, with a fresh taste. Utilizing gac as a drink and food coloring, is not really because of the smell, or the color; but in the pulp of the fruit contained lycopene, beta carotene, Vitamin A, and zeaxantine.
GAC Fruit Benefits
Utilization of gac pulp, similar to pulp of red papua fruit (Pandanus conoideus). Traditionally, Papuans use red juice as a meal sauce. The reason the people of Papua utilize red fruit, not because of taste, aroma or color, but for health purposes. Generally gac pulp is marketed in liquid form (juice).
Only a small part in the form of pasta (concentrate), and powder. Gac juice is usually packaged in bottles and cans. In addition to retail outlets, gac fruit drinks have also been marketed on online sales sites. At Alibaba online sales site, gac juice in cans is offered 4.6 to 7.8 US dollars per carton, with a minimum order of 200 cartons.
In order to obtain regular beta carotene intake, traditional people consume food with high beta carotene content in the form of red fruit sauce and gac. In Indonesia, the gac fruit is almost unknown. Though gac grow wild in the forests of Indonesia. There are Balinese people who use gac that grows wild in the forest, as completeness of certain ceremonies. In Java, gac is almost unknown.
Even when mentioned tepurang as its Indonesian name, most people still do not know. When shown photographs they still do not know and consider the gac as a strange fruit, or fruit recently imported from abroad. Those who found the gac fruit in the forest too, consider this fruit toxic.
Only a small portion of gac is consumed fresh, both for drinks and food coloring. Most of the gac in Vietnam and Thailand go into the industrial world to be processed into juice, concentrate, and as a cosmetic ingredient (scrub), for facial and body skin. In Thailand the utilization of gac pulp as a food dye is not as popular as in Vietnam.
In this once victorious country winning the war against the United States, gac is a fairly important fruit nationally. On the Feast of Tet (Tết Nguyên Đán, First Morning Celebration, Vietnamese New Year); served glutinous rice with gac fruit. This menu is called Xôi Gấc, made from sticky rice, gac pulp, cooked cooking (Angciu), coconut milk, salt and sugar.
Gac Cultivation
Gac is a vines, like passion fruit. Age of fruiting between one and two years since planting. Because it is a vines, cultivation gac must use fences, para-para or dirambatkan to trees / shrubs. For example to lamtoro plant. Gac is a plant with two homes. Meaning male and female flowers are in two different individual plants. If the planted gac only male flowering, will not bear fruit.
If the planted gac females, will be able to bear fruit invertil. This means that the fruit does not contain seeds, or contains seeds but the seeds are hollow. Therefore, we must at least cultivate three individual gac plants in order to have a female tree and a tree until it is guaranteed to bear fruit.
In Vietnam, gac is generally grown on para-para, to facilitate the harvest. Although including a seasonal plant, gac is similar to passion fruit that can only survive for two to three years. Furthermore, the plant will die until it has to be rejuvenated. Gac can only be cultivated with generative seeds derived from seeds.
Because the Gac pulp tastes tasteless, with the aroma not too strong, gac drinks produced in Thailand are usually mixed with other fruits such as pineapple, lychees, or oranges. Gac is used only in red and beta carotene. Later, gac drinks are also believed to be a stimulant (booster endurance), for cancer patients who are undergoing treatment.
Image Source 1
Image Source 2
Image Source 3
Reference :
- Tabloid Kontan
- Kompas.com
- Farmakoterapi.com
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by anggaofficial from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.