TWO PROFESSORS of the College of Industrial Technology (CIT) have been invited by the Health and Nutrition Center of the Department of Education\'s central office in Pasig City to demonstrate malunggay-based recipes to the department\'s regional nutritionist-dieticians and selected home economics teachers.

In a letter to President Pascua, Thelma G. Santos, center director, said that Dr. Lorma M. Valera and Prof. Teresita N. Pablo\'s  expertise will be of great help in coming up with more nutritious and palatable recipes that will benefit not only the school children but also the whole family.

The workshop, which comes in two phases, has already started on April 5-9 and will continue until April 23-25 in Tagaytay City.  The main activities include recipe development and standardization and recipe quantification and sensory evaluation.

The department is deeply involved in the government\'s Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Program by implementing two components: \"Food for School\" Program and \"Gulayan sa Paaralan\" (GPP) Program.  The latter mainly aims to promote food security through the propagation of vegetables and fruits in the schools and communities.  Vegetable production, Santos said, has gotten its boost from President Arroyo when, in one of the Cabinet meetings, she, herself, advocated the planting of malunggay trees nationwide.

Cognizant of the nutritive value of malunggay and its potential as an alternative source of income in future years, the department, Santos said, has challenged school healds to plant at least 30 malunggay trees in their areas during the an orientation seminar on the GPP last year.

The department believes that supplementary feeding in schools should be low-cost and nutritious so that the program may be sustained over time.  It is within this context that the center attempts to develop and standardize malunggay-based recipes mainly for in-school feeding of children and for the school canteen.

The group of food technology professors at CIT has been recognized nationwide for their technology-based malunggay recipes. In December last year, Valera and Pablo were again invited to demonstrate ways of cooking malunggay by the Biotechnology Media and Advocacy Resource Center (BMARC)as part of the launching of the \"Malunggay in the City\" project of the Department of Agriculture�s Biotechnology Program, BMARC, and the communities of barangay Commonwealth in Quezon City.

Meanwhile, the two professors have also been invited by the Philippine Association of Home Economics in State Colleges and Universities, Inc. based at the University in Diliman, Quezon City to demonstrate preparation of a malunggay by-product which the association considers as a breakthrough in the region.

The activity is in line with the association\'s 12th Annual National Conference on April 23-25 at the Alumni Hostel of said university.