Consumption and Nutritive Values of Traditional Mon Food

Abstract

Introduction2Traditional foods, consumed by people over a long period of time, play an important role in establishing local identity, culture, and custom, and they transfer cultural heritage from generation to generation (Albayrak & Gunes, 2010; Inamdar, Chimmad, & Naik, 2005). During the past two decades, several researchers have claimed that traditional foods are healthier products and good sources of micronutrients. However, such statements have been poorly described in scientific literature (Albayrak & Gunes, 2010; Inamdar et al., 2005; Kuhnlein, 2003; Salehi, Kuhnlein, Shahbazi, & Kimiagar, 2005). This paper is based on an exploration in an ethnic minority village of Mon people in Thailand. It aims to identify traditional Mon food, describe its nutritive values, and illuminate selected aspects of food consumption behaviour.Indigenous peoples who live in remote areas mostly rely on traditional foods that are collected from the local surrounding environment (Azar & Aminpour, 1996). The Mon are considered to be one of the earliest peoples in mainland South-East Asia. They were already exposed to Theravada Buddhism more than thousand years before the arrival of the Thai and Burmese in the area, and their language was influential on other languages in the region. More recent migration movements to Thailand appeared in the years following 1948, after the civil war and the subsequent installation of military dictatorship in Myanmar. Even though the Mon in Thailand have been integrated into an economic market system and have adopted many aspects of Thai mainstream society, preparation and consumption of traditional food is a practice that can help to perpetuate Mon identity. In the following, this paper presents the study context, introduces 10 traditional Mon dishes, and discusses the nutritive values of the food.Research MethodologyThe following research was carried out in Ban Dong Sak, Sangkhlaburi district, Kanchanaburi province, Thailand. The research protocol was approved by the ethical committee of the Faculty of Medicine, Thammasat University. The research procedure was divided into three main phases. During the first phase, a food survey was conducted and checklists disseminated among 50 households in Ban Dong Sak to identify common foods in everyday consumption. The results of the survey pointed out 79 kinds of food, which were then categorised into eight groups: curry soups (38 recipes), soups (18 recipes), stir-fried food (8 recipes), deep-fried food (7 recipes), chilli pastes (5 recipes), salads (2 recipes), and grilled food (1 recipe). The 10 most frequently consumed foods were purposively selected as representative samples in the study of nutritive values of traditional Mon food.The second phase of the research dealt with a discussion of traditional Mon food and its ingredients, cooking methods, and consumption. In this phase, 10 housewives, who normally did the cooking for the households, were invited to participate in a focus group discussion. During the process of discussion, the 10 recipes selected in the survey were presented and the cooks agreed to use these as representative for traditional Mon food as all of these dishes (1) were cooked and consumed in Myanmar before they migrated to Thailand, (2) had been consumed for many generations, and (3) were still regularly prepared. The food ingredients and the process of cooking were then recorded to present the standard recipes for this research.The third phase consisted of cooking demonstrations as one housewife from the focus group consented to do a cooking demonstration of all 10 representative recipes. Following the standardised recipes from the focus group discussion, most ingredients were collected from the forest near the village while only a few were bought from the local market. All ingredients were weighted in raw condition by digital scales before starting to cook. In the case of nutritive value, all data in grams were computed by using the INMUCAL programme which was developed by the Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University, and measures calories, protein, fat, carbohydrate, fibre, calcium, phosphorus, iron, vitamin A, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, niacin, and vitamin C. …