Key Takeaway: If you’re looking for healthy food supplements and warm drinks, look no further than Kayumanggi Organics, from the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm. Produced in the Philippines the responsible way, it promotes healthy and delicious yet affordable living with its flagship coconut sugar, as well as other coconut, cacao, and ginger products.

I love to eat healthy when I can, because it’s, well, healthy. But eating healthy can be sometimes so expensive – for example, a one-liter tub of Greek yogurt here can cost as high as Php460.00 (around US$10.00). Especially when you go organic – that’s the price you pay for the effort to keep your food “clean”. This is ironic given that organic was actually the norm in the distant past, before the industrial revolution and pesticides – you’d think it would be costlier to go the so-called conventional way.

Sure, they say that organic food has only a marginal difference on your health as compared to conventional food. But then, Western society is so obsessed with cold, hard, scientific, empirical results in front of them that ages-long respected fields such as Chinese medicine and naturopathy are unceremoniously relegated to the sidelines as “alternative” medicine or worse, pseudoscience (false science). Furthermore, while organic food may not have much of a more positive impact on your health, it certainly has a lot more positive impact on the environment – would you want poisonous chemicals in your food grown in that soil in the future?

Fortunately, efforts are being made now to make organic food more accessible and not just a rich person thing – one example being Community-Shared Agriculture, popularized in the Philippines by Good Food Community among others. Another enterprise I know and buy from is making condiments and supplements real tasty, healthy, and importantly affordable. Welcome, Kayumanggi Organics!

Kayumanggi Organics (Facebook)

Kayumanggi Organics is a social enterprise that’s proving itself to be one of the up-and-coming forces of the organic food sphere. Based in the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan, it promises healthy yet hearty foodstuffs that you can easily mix with your other (equally healthy) dishes and drinks.

Kayumanggi Organics (Facebook)

Its flagship product is the Raw Coconut Sugar, which we at Habi, in all our efforts to go healthy and natural in the food we intake, believe can really revolutionize the way we all – diabetics included – enjoy our food. As it’s raw and unprocessed, it has retained its maximum amount of nutrients, namely potassium, phosphorus, vitamin C, and all live enzymes. Compared to white sugar, raw coconut sugar has:

• over four hundred times more potassium (which reduces hypertension and helps regulate blood sugar as well as cholesterol levels and weight);
• twenty times as much zinc (which contributes to mental development); and
• about thirty times as much magnesium (which helps metabolism and the nervous system).
• A glycemic index of just 35%, meaning it is entirely diabetes-safe.

If you want something liquid, say to drink in the morning or to pour over salads, you can get Raw Coconut Nectar, which is simply raw coconut sugar in syrup form. I myself take a spoonful of coco nectar in the morning, and in dire circumstances, a few tablespoonfuls can substitute as a meal already – it’s also marketed as a health supplement.

To perfect the coco trio, Kayumanggi also offers its Raw Virgin Coconut Oil, yet another superfood with its medium chain fatty acids, a quick source of energy and hunger elimination. Thanks to these healthy fats, VCO – like coco nectar – is anti-fungal and anti-bacterial. Actually, a cousin of mine tells me to apply VCO to your feet to prevent foot odor. I haven’t tried it yet myself, but people around me who have done so say it works. And not just on the feet – the hair and the skin in general could use some of it for refreshment.

No wonder the coconut plant is called the tree of life in the Philippines.

If coconuts aren’t your thing, Kayumanggi Organics also offers its Rustique Cacao, which can be mixed in with milk (coconut

Kayumanggi Organics (Facebook)

milk, they advise 😉 ) to become a healthy drink that regulates bowel movement as well as blood pressure and blood flow. They also have Wild Ginger Tea, a healthy powdered “instant” drink that is packed with antioxidants and helps relieve nausea, colds, cough, and even irritable bowel syndrome. I myself take homemade ginger and calamansi (Philippine lime) with coco nectar or honey when I feel sick, but since it takes time, and we have an organic option here anyway, I might as well avail of it!

What’s even more inspiring is that Kayumanggi Organics was co-founded by a Dutchman who has been living in the Philippines for more than two years now. Amazing how people across the world see the potential and opportunities in the Philippines – these people are those who give me relief from the ever-increasingly infuriating traffic and communications systems – or lack thereof – in the metro, and stoke in me the fire to dedicate my life to a life of higher purpose rooted in integral responsibility and faith-driven service, in the Philippines.

I invite you, therefore, to join us as we walk a happy journey of going natural – to show your responsibility towards both Mother Nature and yourself. As Kayumanggi’s motto goes, “Nagsisikhay tungo sa malusog na pamayanang maharlika “ (Striving towards a healthy noble community). Come and strive with us!

Kayumanggi Organics is now available in Habi Footwear’s store along Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. For details, visit http://www.habifootwear.com or send an email to habi.footwear@gmail.com. Or simply use the contact form in this site. 😉