Gac fruit (Momordica cochinchinensis) is a bright orange spikey fruit found in Southeast Asia. It’s only harvested for two months each year (December and January). It is often used on special occasions in Vietnam as well as in traditional Chinese medicines.
As with most fruits and vegetables that are orange/red in color, gac fruit contains a high concentration of beta-carotene and lycopene. Most of the claimed health benefits of the gac fruit arise out of this high beta-carotene and lycopene concentration. In fact, per gram, gac fruit has more beta-carotene than carrots or sweet potatoes (which already have pretty high concentrations).
The gac fruit pulp is often mixed with glutinous rice to make a Vietnamese dish called xôi gac, which sounds to me like a natural golden rice that can help prevent vitamin A deficiencies (beta-carotene is converted to vitamin A in the body).
Gac fruit is also high in lycopene, a carotenoid commonly found in tomatoes that has been linked to various health benefits including reducing the risk of strokes. And a 2005 study found that gac fruit contained a protein that inhibited tumor growth in mice.
Gac powder
For the process of making Gac powder, it is important to pay attention to some important steps to produce good quality and guaranteed product.
Step 1
Choose Gac fruit that is ripe, intact, not cracked and crushed. The fruit has a regular round shape and regular spines.
Step 2
After being seperated, the gut can be stored in plastic bags or storage boxes and then stored in cold storage. You should avoid gac from exposing to the sun.
Step 3
Dry the seeds.
Step 4
Peel off the meat that has been dried and put the seeds aside and classify them for storage and classification.
Step 5
Gac meat is dried in a suitable temperature so that Gac powder does not overheat.
Step 6
Crush Gac powder. This is one of the stages that require a high level of requirement, expertise and technology. Because Gac powder has a lot of oil, it is necessary to use some advanced grinding technology to crush Gac powder without burning, losing oil and nutrients of Gac.
