Gac Fruit at Outreach!

After carefully nursing the seeds obtained from two fruit donated by Mr Ger Schjujren in October last year, our little gac fruit seedlings finally emerged and sprouted so vigorously that we had to transplant them into a large pot to nurture further until they can be properly transplanted. We had to put a temporary mini trellis for the baby gac plants as the taller ones were beginning to fall over under the weight of their long vines.

With plenty of sunlight and water, we're hoping they'll be fruiting before the end of the year! Gac fruit are not familiar to most locals, so here's a short, edited write-up about gac fruit and what they're good for.

Momordica cochinchinensis, commonly known as gac, is a Southeast Asian fruit. It is also known as Baby Jackfruit, Spiny Bitter Gourd, Sweet Gourd, or Cochin Gourd. It is traditionally used as both food and medicine where it grows. Because it has a relatively short harvest season ( harvest normally starts about 8 months after planting, harvest only lasts for 2 months ), it gac is usually served only at ceremonial or festive occasions in Vietnam

Other than the use of its fruit and leaves for special Vietnamese culinary dishes, gac is also used for its medicinal and nutritional properties. In Vietnam, the seed membranes are used to aid in the relief of dry eyes, as well as to promote healthy vision. In traditional Chinese medicine the seeds of gac (mu bie zi) are employed for a variety of internal and external purposes. Recent attention is also beginning to be attracted in the West because of chemical analysis of the fruit suggesting that it has high concentrations of several important phytonutrients.

Gac has been shown to be especially high in lycopene content. It can contain up to 70 times the amount of lycopene found in tomatoesand up to 10 times the amount of beta-carotene of carrots or sweet potatoes. Additionally, the carotenoids present in gac are bound to long-chain fatty acids, resulting in what is claimed to be a more bioavailable form. 

There has also been recent research that suggests that gac contains a protein that may inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells. So, what does gac fruit taste like?

Gac flesh and oily sacs are quite palatable and have very little taste, it could be described as a very mild taste, in the same way that a cucumber has very little taste. It is only slightly sweet or not sweet, and it would not be described as delicious, more like plain or no taste. The mesocarp (light orange outer fleshy part under the spiny skin) has a soft spongy texture. It is normally discarded (composted!). When the seeds and oil sac are cooked with rice, they impart a lustrous appearance and oil-rich, mildly nutty flavor to the rice.

For western diets, a convenient way to prepare gac fruit is to drop the seed sacs into a pot of tomato sauce and cook briefly. Of course if your tomato sauce already has a rich tomato taste and contains some other healthy oils like olive oil, the fruit imparts almost no detectable flavor to the tomato sauce while turbo-charging it with phyto-nutrients. Use it to make some pizza or lasagna!

Source : https://www.seedman.com/gac.htm