If eating coconut is healthy, can it also enhance beauty? If you ask the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), the answer would be a resounding yes.
The PCA, created under Presidential Decree 232, is mandated “to oversee the development of coconut and other palm oil industry in all its aspects.” One of its research centers in Albay has developed cosmetics out of makapuno.
The researchers said makapuno may be used to make hand and body lotion, hand sanitizers, facial masks, hair cream and hair gel, shampoo, conditioner and even a biodegradable edible film (which can be used as wrapper for candies and lumpia).
Makapuno is an exotic nut obtained from the coconut tree (scientific name: Cocos nucifera). It is different from the ordinary coconut in having the inside completely filled with thick and curdled white meat. Some experts called it as “mutant coconut.”
Dr. Maria Judith B. Rodriguez, who spearheaded the study, discovered that makapuno has a high content of galactomannan, a polysaccharide that is also classified as a gum. “This galactomannan gives the makapuno a “jelly-like solid endosperm (meat) and highly viscous liquid endosperm,” she explained. “Usually the meat is made into jam while the liquid endosperm is thrown away.”
The coconut waste attracted her attention. “Newly harvested makapuno liquid endosperm when applied as is on the hands and other parts of the body (including hair) has a soothing and moisturizing effect,” she found.
Dr. Rodriquez then applied for a grant from PCA central office. When it was approved, the study paved way to the development of an inexpensive and large-scale method of isolating the galactomannan from the waste makapuno liquid endosperm.
The PCA innovator called the whitish, fibrous powder produced from galactomannan as “mak gum” as it came from mutant coconut. Her study showed that a liter of waste makapuno liquid endosperm can make 50 grams of mak gum.
Galactomannan is considered “a natural biopolymer” as it has a “natural hydrating function making it suitable for formulations that treat dry, damaged or aged skin,” to quote the words of Dr. Rodriguez. Compared to other hand and body lotion products sold in the market, she said the makapuno-based lotion is better because it is natural, non-greasy and no allergic reactions have been observed upon its application.
Currently, the Albay-based coconut research center is working on formulating facial masks, hair cream and gel, shampoo and conditioner, and a body massage lotion out of the makapuno. It also doing studies on making makapuno sanitizers and.
Not only that. The mak gum has also been tried as a raw material for the development of biodegradable edible film (biofilm), which can be used as an efficient wrapper for candies and lumpia. The biofilm will also be tried as possible gauze for wounds. “There is now a high demand for stable, biodegradable wound dressing materials that can absorb body fluids and deliver medications to keep wounds clean and dry speeding the healing process,” Dr. Rodriguez pointed out.
But the best product from makapuno is still for food. The makapuno’s meat is largely used for ice cream, pastries, preserves and other Filipino delicacies. It is also incorporated in such favorites as fruit salad and halo-halo.
Makapuno is such a hit among Filipino consumers that big companies like San Miguel Corporation are in need of makapuno by the tons each month. In Laguna, buko pie – made from ordinary and mutant coconuts – are bestsellers.
The high demand for makapuno both from the local primary and secondary food processors stands constant on a yearly basis. “More than four million more nuts are required to fill the gap between the current and required supplies,” said PCA regional director for Bicol Minda Arellano.
The latest nationwide survey showed that there were only about 30,000 makapuno trees in the country and its existing stand of fruit-bearing trees supply only about three percent of the demand.
The PCA urges Filipino farmers to plant makapuno in their farms. It is a profitable crop as one can realize a monthly income of around P800,000 once the trees start to bear nuts. Currently, a nut of the makapuno variety costs nearly 10 times than the ordinary coconut.
Farmers don’t have problem these days in getting their planting materials unlike in the past. Almost half a century ago, makapuno was a mystery and a rare nut to the farmers. “Every so often the coconut farmers found makapuno nuts in their copra harvest,” wrote Dr. Benito S. Vergara in a booklet on the subject. “If no liquid sound was made while shaking the nut, there was a very good chance that it was a makapuno.”
In those times, farmers had a hard time producing makapuno. “The makapuno nuts do not germinate, and so a pure makapuno tree could not be produced,” Dr. Vergara, a national scientist, stressed. The oldest method of propagating makapuno was by planting the kabuwig (from same bunch). This was to ensure that the recessive genes of the makapuno would surface in the next generation when trees were planted near each other. But the highest possible percentage of nuts turning to be makapuno was only 25 percent.
But Dr. Emerita V. de Guzman – who had Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Plant Physiology from Cornell University in the United States – was convinced she could do something to improve the low percentage and produce a pure makapuno tree yielding 100 percent makapuno nuts.
Thanks to her thorough research and study, Dr. de Guzman was able to produce such kind of makapuno. In 1981, she cross-pollinated the embryo culture coconut trees (that is, transferred the pollen from one makapuno tree to another makapuno tree). The nuts produced were 100 percent makapuno. [jims vincent capuno]
But it was not until the persistent effort of another lady scientist – in the person of Erlinda Paje-Rillo, also of PCA Albay – that the technology on the propagation of 100-percent makapuno planting materials – called embryo-cultured makapuno (ECM) — has been commercialized.
Currently, government and private embryo culture laboratories are producing ECM seedlings in Albay, Cavite, Pangasinan, Leyte, Davao, Zamboanga, Tiaong, and Lipa. Rillo said the Department of Science and Technology had also funded significant ECM plantings in Davao, Zamboanga, Tacloban, Pangasinan, Albay and Cavite.
Research done by the PCA research center in Zamboanga shows successfully grown makapuno trees can produce 100 makapuno nuts if planted together and properly isolated from other coconut trees using pollen barriers.
To encourage pollination among makapuno trees, experts recommend planting the crops eight meters apart. To maximize production in plantation areas, they suggest intercropping with annual or cash crops between the trees while they are still young (a year and up to three years) and not yet bearing.
With right fertilization (there are different fertilizer recommendations for makapuno trees per year), pest and disease control and culture, makapuno trees start to flower from three to four years after planting, with the first harvest between four years and five years.
“I’m sure there will be a makapuno industry. It will bring diversity to our coconut products and it will be something that’s unique to the Philippines,” said Rillo, who was named Outstanding Agricultural Scientist in the 2007 National Gawad Saka Awards.
