Do you know petai? Petai is Indonesia name for three and or beans with pungent odor, widely eaten raw and cooked. A Latin name is Parkia speciosa. So, what is call in your country??
In Indonesia’s villages, petai becomefavorite food as side dish, because the beans is very delicious. The leaf also boiled for meals. Those beans often added while cooking vegetables, or may be meat dish. But, some people do not fond to eat this bean, because its odor is pungent and causing mouth odor, so bad aroma……
But, behind that bad smell, petai (the bean and leaf) have special healthy function. The beans are known as liver (hepatalgia), nefritis, worm (antelmintik), and diabetes medicine. The leaf could use for yellow disease medicine.
The more important of this food raw, petai contains rich of antioxidants, so it can protect us against free radical such as Hydrogen peroxide, super oxide anion, and hydroxyls the air which we whiff. Petai have super oxide cleaning activity more than 70% (source: Medicinal Plants: Quality Herbal Products for Healthy Living (1999), Vimala S).
So, it is your choices now, consume petai which causing bad smell in mouth, but become healthier, or do not consume, but miss one of healthy food?? :) Don’t worry; there are still a lot of food raw which contains of rich antioxidants, such as young cashew leaf (Anacardium occidentale) and Solanum tarvum (in Indonesia called takokak).
This article’s source : KOMPAS. Translated and edited by reog.