Green Saba Banana, a Diabetic-Friendly Food

                              

Saba banana is one of the staple foods in tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia. It is a species of banana that is cooked rather than eaten raw like dessert bananas. Ripe Saba bananas are more delicious and have many culinary uses, and unripe or green Saba bananas also have their share of usefulness as food. Unripe Saba is cooked by boiling it whole with its peel on. It can also be roasted. Boiled green Saba is eaten to pair with kinilaw, a Filipino version of Mexican raw fish dish ceviche or to roasted fish. Most often it is eaten alone as snack or eaten together with salted fish or salted shrimp or alamang which are called bagoong in Filipino. A linupak or linusak in Cebuano is a banana snack on which a boiled green Saba is mashed in a mortar and pestle and mixed with grated coconut, brown sugar and butter or margarine. 

What is good about Saba is that it is one of the cheapest foods in the local market and is always available all year round.

Green Saba banana, a fruit that is good for diabetes.

Green or unripe Saba banana may be a fruit that is good for diabetics because of its low glycemic index that means its consumption results in slow rise of blood sugar in the body. It is rich in dietary fiber and contains a resistant starch that acts as prebiotic that feeds gut bacteria. Eating cooked green Saba may improve long term blood sugar management and gut health.

An unripe green banana has a glycemic index of 30 which is low while ripe banana has a medium glycemic index of 60. For this reason, green bananas should be cooked and eaten within three days after purchase or harvest to benefit from their low glycemic index because they easily ripen.

Like all foods, green Saba bananas should be consumed in moderation. Consult a health care provider or dietician if you would like to incorporate green Saba banana as one of your chosen foods for your long-term diabetic management.

Kaffir Lime (Suwa)

kaffir lime is a shrub that belongs to the citrus family. It is called suwa in Northern Mindanao, Philippines. The plant can grow up to about 4 meters tall and is easily distinguishable from other citrus plants because of its distinctive “double leaf” look of leaves. Like some citrus shrubs, it has no trunk in the base but stems and branches that have sharp spines.

Suwa has leaves with pleasant limy aroma and small white flowers. Its fruit is excessively sour even when fully ripe. It is ovate in shape with thick skin. Inside it is pulpy juice-containing segments. Because of its sourness, suwa is not commonly consumed by people as a table fruit but as ingredient and flavor for dish especially kinilaw, the Filipino version of the Mexican ceviche. Cebuano speaking people of Northern Mindanao such as those in Cagayan de Oro are fond of eating kinilaw, a fresh fish-based dish. Kinilaw is not complete without the indigenous ingredients of suwa, tabon-tabon, siling labuyo (bird’s eye chili pepper), tuba (coconut bud sap) and vinegar. Other ingredients can be optional depending on the taste or likings of the one who prepares it as well as those who consume it. A squeeze of suwa juice is also best to flavor a Filipino condiment called bago-ong which is made from a brine fermented fish.  

Because of its limited applications, suwa is not grown in commercial scale, but are just mostly grown in the backyard where it can be a decorative or fruit bearing shrub. A single plant of the ever-fruitful Suwa can provide the house owner enough fruits for his needs all year round.