Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Moringa oleifera ...... Nature's SuperStar!!

Now that you have had an opportunity to look at the chemical analysis of Moringa oleifera leaves and pods, you will notice that it is quite similar in the ingredients composition of many synthetic multi-vitamins out there in the market place. So what's so different in Moringa? The answer is simple. It is all NATURAL and its composition and ratio in weightage is naturally constituted and not man-designed........and it does not have this chemical smell that you normally find in many multi-vitamins. In fact, I have given the dried leaf powder to children to consume for some years now and some of them tell me that it smells like "seaweed".

Moringa oleifera is saved to eat and can be consumed by young and old alike without fear of it being toxic to the human body. This plant has been consumed by many different cultures in the world for many years and not only have many scientific researches confirmed this safety, they have also proven many medicinal and disease preventive potential of this wonderful tree which I will continue to blog about in the near and distant future.

The nutritional value of Moringa oleifera is so great that many NGOs are now using this tree as a tool to help eradicate malnutrition whenever possible. The traditional method of fighting malnutrition in the old days were to provide free or subsidised milk powder, flour and etc..... this methodology is still used today and are generally expensive to administer and does not help make the local people self sufficient and be responsible for their own well-being. The Moringa method is better as the local people are taught to plant the tree and to add the many edible parts of the tree to their meagre diet to supplement their nutrition intake. This method has seen significant success and especially so when free or subsidised milk powder, flour, etc logistically stopped for them. Growing Moringa oleifera trees are less expensive than the traditional method and are sustainable.

Did you know that malnutrition is not an "illness" found only in third world or developing countries?....you can also find malnutrition in many developed countries. Consider this and you can see that people in developed countries who are very poor and financially strapped are likely to have some malnutrition issues although not at the level of those in less developed countries. And Moringa leaf powder can be a tool to help these people at lesser costs.

Some NGOs have also convinced local African maternity clinics and hospitals to include Moringa in fresh form and/or in dried leaf powder into the diets of infants, children, nursing mothers and general patients and have found that infants and children become healthier and put on weight quickly while the nursing mothers produced more milk for their babies, recovers from the rigours of childbirth quickly and are less fatigue and the general patients recover faster and have shorter stay in the hospital.

So, what do you think of Moringa now? Looking outside the box you can see that this tree is certainly very different from any other tree in the world that mother nature has given to us.