Nass­er Khan

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion's an­nounce­ment to in­clude more lo­cal con­tent in the School Nu­tri­tion/Feed­ing Pro­gramme is a wel­come ini­tia­tive that will on­ly auger well for the na­tion's health and agri­cul­ture sec­tors.

Food for Thought/Grow and Eat Lo­cal seeks to in­form about the 149 crops that are grown in T&T (not count­ing the va­ri­eties with­in many of them).

In this the 27th in­stal­ment of the con­tin­u­ing se­ries, we fea­ture caraili/caraaili/carail­li, a pop­u­lar veg­etable in the di­ets of peo­ples through­out the trop­i­cal world. Iron­i­cal­ly, its pop­u­lar­i­ty is large­ly based not on its taste which is marked­ly bit­ter but on its in­valu­able med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties. It is a trop­i­cal plant that is wide­ly cul­ti­vat­ed in Asia, In­dia, East Africa, South Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean com­mon­ly used in cook­ing and as a nat­ur­al rem­e­dy for treat­ing di­a­betes.

Al­so known as bit­ter mel­on, bit­ter squash, or bal­sam-pear, Mo­mordi­ca cha­ran­tia, has names adapt­ed from oth­er lan­guages such as karela from San­skrit. Here in T&T, we call it caraili (pro­nounced 'car-eye-lee'), again a like­ly vari­a­tion from the San­skrit lan­guage.

Caraili orig­i­nat­ed in In­dia and was in­tro­duced in­to Chi­na in the 14th cen­tu­ry. It is a trop­i­cal and sub­trop­i­cal vine of the fam­i­ly Cu­cur­bitaceae. Its many va­ri­eties dif­fer sub­stan­tial­ly in shape and bit­ter­ness. Un­like its cousins, the pump­kin and wa­ter­mel­on, Caraili is cul­ti­vat­ed on up­right trel­lis­es so that it hangs down and does not lie on the ground.

The vine grows up to five me­tres in length as a climb­ing peren­ni­al that bears elon­gat­ed pro­duce with a knob­by, warty sur­face. It is a use­ful med­i­c­i­nal and veg­etable plant for hu­man health and one of the most promis­ing plants for di­a­betes...bit­ter but good, as it is of­ten la­belled. Some bear minia­ture caraile of on­ly six to ten cm in length, which may be served in­di­vid­u­al­ly as stuffed veg­eta­bles.

These minia­ture del­i­ca­cies, prop­er­ly pre­pared, is pop­u­lar in Bangladesh, In­dia, Pak­istan, Nepal, and oth­er coun­tries in South Asia. Here in the Caribbean, a wild form ex­ists with very small fruit that are a favourite of the birds which spread the seeds. When ripe the seeds are a del­i­ca­cy when eat­en straight from the pod. This wild form can be a nui­sance though since it is ag­gres­sive, grows quick­ly and can cov­er and smoth­er ex­ist­ing trees. In vil­lage life, vines were pulled to make a bed­ding for chick­ens to set and said to keep away fowl lice.

Caraili is hol­low in cross-sec­tion, with a rel­a­tive­ly thin lay­er of flesh sur­round­ing a cen­tral seed cav­i­ty filled with large, flat seeds and pith. It is most­ly eat­en green, or as it is be­gin­ning to turn yel­low. At this stage, the flesh is crunchy and wa­tery in tex­ture, sim­i­lar to cu­cum­ber, christophene or green bell pep­per, but bit­ter. The skin is ten­der and ed­i­ble. Seeds and pith ap­pear white when un­ripe and are usu­al­ly re­moved be­fore cook­ing.

As it ripens, the flesh (rind) be­comes some­what tougher and more bit­ter, and many con­sid­er it too dis­taste­ful to eat. On the oth­er hand, the pith be­comes sweet and in­tense­ly red; it can be eat­en un­cooked in this state, and is a pop­u­lar in­gre­di­ent in some South­east Asian sal­ads.

When ful­ly ripe, it turns or­ange and mushy, and splits in­to seg­ments which curl back dra­mat­i­cal­ly to ex­pose seeds cov­ered in bright red pulp. The pulp and ar­ils are high in carotenoids, iron, phos­pho­rous and ascor­bic acid. The pulp has sol­u­ble pectin but no free pec­tic acid. Re­search has found that the leaves are nu­tri­tious sources of cal­ci­um, mag­ne­sium, potas­si­um, phos­pho­rus and iron; both the ed­i­ble parts and the leaves are great sources of the B vi­t­a­mins.

Caraili is gen­er­al­ly con­sumed cooked in the green or ear­ly yel­low­ing stage. The young shoots and leaves of the bit­ter mel­on may al­so be eat­en as greens. In Chi­nese cui­sine, caraili is val­ued for its bit­ter flavour, typ­i­cal­ly in stir-fries, soups, dim sum, and herbal teas. In North In­di­an cui­sine, it is of­ten served with yo­gurt on the side to off­set the bit­ter­ness, used in cur­ries or stuffed with spices and then cooked in oil. Here in the Caribbean, caraili can be cut in­to slices and fried, or stuffed with fill­ings made with meat, fish or veg­eta­bles, a del­i­ca­cy called "kaloun­gi".

Caraili is a pow­er­ful nu­tri­ent-dense plant com­posed of a com­plex ar­ray of ben­e­fi­cial com­pounds. These in­clude bioac­tive chem­i­cals, vi­t­a­mins, min­er­als and an­tiox­i­dants which all con­tribute to its re­mark­able ver­sa­til­i­ty in treat­ing a wide range of ill­ness­es. They con­tain high amounts of vi­t­a­min C, vi­t­a­min A, vi­t­a­min E, vi­t­a­mins B1, B2 and B3, as well as vi­t­a­min B9 (fo­late). The caloric val­ues for leaf, fruit and seed were 213.26, 241.66 and 176.61 Kcal/100 g re­spec­tive­ly.

It is al­so rich in min­er­als in­clud­ing potas­si­um, cal­ci­um, zinc, mag­ne­sium, phos­pho­rus and iron, and is a good source of di­etary fi­bre. Med­i­c­i­nal val­ue of Caraili has been at­trib­uted to its high an­tiox­i­dant prop­er­ties due in part to phe­nols, flavonoids, iso flavones, ter­penes, an­thro­quinones, and glu­cosi­no­lates, all of which con­fer a bit­ter taste.

Based on the mul­ti­tude of med­ical con­di­tions that Caraili can treat, sci­en­tists are more and more in­ter­est­ed in study­ing its bioac­tive com­pounds and their ac­tions on the body. How­ev­er, as many stud­ies re­port, there has been sub­stan­tial em­pha­sis on the an­ti-di­a­bet­ic com­pounds and their hy­po­glycemic prop­er­ties. A num­ber of re­port­ed clin­i­cal stud­ies have shown that ex­tracts from the­Caraili (skin, pulp, seeds, leaves) con­tain sev­er­al bioac­tive com­pounds that have hy­po­glycemic ac­tiv­i­ty in both di­a­bet­ic an­i­mals and hu­mans.

Caraili has been in use for a very long time in Hin­du med­i­cine or Ayurve­da and al­so used in var­i­ous Asian and African herbal med­i­cine sys­tems. In Turkey, it has been used as a folk rem­e­dy for a va­ri­ety of ail­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly stom­ach com­plaints. In tra­di­tion­al med­i­cine of In­dia dif­fer­ent parts of the plant are used to re­lieve di­a­betes, as a stom­achic, lax­a­tive, an­tibil­ious, emet­ic, an­thelmintic agent, for the treat­ment of cough, res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, skin dis­eases, wounds, ul­cer, gout, and rheuma­tism. It has a num­ber of pur­port­ed us­es in­clud­ing can­cer pre­ven­tion, treat­ment of di­a­betes, fever, HIV and Aids, and in­fec­tions. While it has shown some po­ten­tial clin­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty in lab­o­ra­to­ry ex­per­i­ments, fur­ther stud­ies are re­quired to rec­om­mend its use.

Vis­it the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries' web­site at http://www.agri­cul­ture.gov.tt/

This se­ries is writ­ten in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cyn­thra Per­sad, re­tired di­rec­tor of Re­search, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture. For in­for­ma­tion on ac­quir­ing copies of the two Crops of T&T charts, email fruit­stt@live.com

Fried caraili

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

1 large Caraili

2 pi­men­to pep­pers

2 cloves gar­lic

1 small onion

salt and pep­per to taste

METHOD

�2 Chop caraili in­to rings

�2 Cut up pi­men­to pep­pers, onion and gar­lic and set aside

�2 In a fry­ing pan, medi­um flame, heat oil

�2 Add chopped onions etc, and saut� un­til gold­en brown; add chopped caraili rings and mix in with the sea­son­ing; con­tin­ue fry­ing, turn­ing caraili un­til slight­ly brown

�2 Add salt and pep­per to taste