Hotong: Healthy Diet ala IPB Students
Diet has become a trend in today’s society. Mistakes in the diet can cause problems such as lack of nutrition and stimulate the occurrence of degenerative diseases.
Prevalence of lack of fulfillment of nutrition in diet many happening in society who consume food with a high starch like rice, corn, and wheat. The cereals contain low protein and micronutrients, and a high glycemic load that can lead to type 2 diabetes.
Departing from that, three students of Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) trying to find food that is safe for diet. They are Moh. Nailun Ni'am, Lusi Guntari, and Winda Komala who performed a nutritional quality analysis.
"Hotong is a food crop that has not been optimally utilized. Hotong has advantages both in terms of agronomic and nutritional quality. In terms of the agronomic, Hotong does not need much water and fertilizer so that it fits with the suboptimum land type mainly arid type of land that is still many and untapped in Indonesia, " said Nailun, as the group leader.
In terms of nutritional quality, Hotong has a low glycemic index, high protein and fiber, antioxidant properties, and carbohydrate levels which are equivalent to other cereals. Therefore they try to use Hotong into functional food for diet.
With the guidance of Dr. Sintho W. Ardie, S.P., M.Si., a lecturer at the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, IPB, those three students are analyzing the nutritional content of several Hotong genotypes and making the formulation of processed Hotong products such as cookies.
This research is one of the Research Student Creativity Program (PKM PE) Year 2018 with the research title "Hotong Nutrition Quality Profile (Setaria italica (L.) Beauv.) And Its Prospect as Functional Food".
Nailun and her colleagues hope the results of their research can provide information on the Hotong formulation in the manufacture of processed food products. "We hope that Hotong can enter commercial industry into food products and the nutritional quality in Hotong can be specified against certain types of functional ingredients," she added. (flw)
