Cellulos-y

bismillah.
mereput sikit. so let's translate our random thoughts into blog posts. hehe

Few days back I bought fresh molokhia from the greengrocer.
I used to buy the frozen one, conveniently packed, saving the lazy me from the hassles of washing and mincing them. hehe.

So while cutting the stems i noticed that the hard stems are very rich in fibers. The leaves of course lets out some kind of gooey stuff when you immerse them in soups. Upon this, I thought of something familiar. A plant which has a high fiber content, being used as raw materials for manufacturing ropes, paper pulps, hardboards, sacks, fabrics , animal feed / fodder and even biofuel. Well, amazing right?

That superplant is called Kenaf. I don't know if you ever heard of it before. I read about it in my father's agriculture magazine. hehe. The scientific name is Hibiscus Cannabinus.

Image courtesy of http://www.naturalfibersinfo.org/

You can read more about this amazing plant at these links:

http://www.lktn.gov.my/index.php/my/ 

(there is even a Lembaga Kenaf dan Tembakau Malaysia. Just wow.) 

http://kenafmalaysia.com/process.html

Okay back to molokhia. 

So i googled about molokhia's scientific name.

Well, as expected, apart from its amazing nutritional properties, its fibers are also used for manufacturing ropes and gunny sacks.

The scientific name is corchorus olitorius. 

''This Middle Eastern super-green, known as Jew's mallow or Egyptian spinach, has a high vitamin and mineral content. This “food of kings” dates back to the time of the pharaohs, when an Egyptian king drank it in soup to recover from an illness. Today, it’s one of the most widely eaten vegetables in Egypt.'' - Kitazawa Seed page

We call its fiber jute. And the leaves that we eat in soups mostly, are called mallow leaves. 

Researches have proved that molokhia is rich in potassium, iron, copper, manganese and zinc as well as high energy values essential in human and animal nutrition. 

(reference : http://www.ajol.info/index.php/apra/article/view/49827)

Well, all the more reasons to keep eating molokhia i guess :)