Recipes From Students to Residents: Making Local Cuisines Superfood-Enriched Through Microgreens Incorporation in Communities in Laguna

Oral Presentation. 11th Malikhaing Guro International Conference Caravan on Culture-Based Education. Philippines. October 12, 19, & 26, 2024

Microgreens, as an emerging commodity, are in a nascent state and need to be introduced into the Filipino food plate. To propel this advocacy forward, the project "Increasing Community and Youth Sector Capacity to Produce and Utilize Microgreens for Household Food Security in the Province of Laguna'' spearheaded an exploration of recipes incorporating microgreens through ideation among students from Los Baños Senior High School (LBSHS) and the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). Students were tasked with incorporating mungbean, dun peas, and cowpea microgreens into different local recipes, writing a guide, and designing an infographic for each recipe. LBSHS students produced infographics of recipe guides for Filipino dishes such as Bicol express, crispy sisig tofu, lumpiang shanghai, mayo salad, and microballs. UPLB students also cooked microgreen-incorporated dishes and produced guides for scrambled eggs, microgreens & vegetable pancakes, pickled microgreens, carbonara, and ginisang munggo. These were then posted on social media and used for community outreach programs targeting single parents, mothers, and persons with disabilities to encourage them to produce and utilize microgreens at the household level. Samples of scrambled eggs with dun pea microgreens were also made available for taste tests during the community outreach activities. Through this project, microgreens are now bridging ideas from schools to communities and households. Moving forward, a microgreen recipe booklet is in development for distribution in future outreach activities. This initiative aims to impact household food and nutrition security, contributing to achieving Sustainable Development Goals such as Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-Being, and Responsible Consumption and Production—one school, one community at a time.

Keywords: Filipino food plate, microgreens, local cuisines, incorporating microgreens, superfood