The Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB) has developed food made from corn, sorghum, sago and tubers to support food diversification.
“We produce artificial rice from local plants in which we can add fiber, antioxidant substances or other ingredients for a customized diet,” he told The Jakarta Post over the weekend. “It has similar characteristics with conventional rice — an analogy to rice — so we named the product ‘analog rice’.”
Just like other rice or wheat-based food products, he said, the advantages of artificial rice were that it could be cooked through both conventional and modern ways, and people did not need to wash it before using it.
“This kind of rice can also be made with certain functions, unlike conventional rice. For example, it can be consumed by people with diabetes by adjusting its glucose level,” Slamet said.
But its weakness, he said, was its expensive price: Ranging from Rp 9,000 (US$0.99) to Rp 14,000 (US$1.52) per liter, depending on the ingredients used to make the rice.
“The targeted customers are still people from the middle-to-upper class, in the hope that they don’t have to consume regular rice,” he said.
“We still haven’t been able to produce analog rice with a color as white as conventional rice.”
Slamet said that such a product had previously been studied by several other universities and research centers in China and the Philippines.
Meanwhile, researchers from the Bogor Botanical Garden found that the tubers of Titan Arum, or corpse flowers, can be processed into various kinds of baked goods.
One of the researchers, Yuzammi, said they were currently studying two types of Titan Arum that could be used to make cakes.
“We are now studying Amorphophallus Titanum and Amorphophallus Paeoniifolius. We’re studying the genetics, the plant tissues, the conservation status, the making of the flour and other food materials,” she said recently.
Yuzammi said that the Amorphophallus Paeoniifolius, locally called suweg, was safe for consumption and had the potential to prevent several degenerative diseases, including heart disease, as it could reduce the cholesterol levels in the blood.
“The plant has the capabilities to tie the cholesterol up, just like instant oats, and it can press the blood-glucose level, so it can be used for those who suffer from diabetes,” she said.
In addition, Yuzammi said that suweg could also be made into various kinds of baked items, such as brownies, doughnuts, cheese sticks and wonton dumplings, but with a softer texture.
Irma Susilawati from the Samdhana Institute said the invention could be used as a substitute to flour.
There are around 176 kinds of Titan Arum around the world, 25 of which grow in Indonesia. Of those 25, 18 are endemic plants that can be found in the islands of Borneo, Java, Sulawesi and Sumatra.
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