As someone who first started cooking seriously during the pandemic, it’s been a long journey from trying out those viral recipes, going on TikTok to find cooking tips, to successfully recreating meals I loved growing up. To this day, I still have booboos in the kitchen, but I’m slowly learning to trust my gut in the kitchen
Just as there’s a long journey to hone your cooking skills, so is the journey that goes into the food we consume. Admittedly, as someone who normally just cooks what I find in the kitchen, I don’t always understand what goes on in the recipes I make.
So it was a fresh experience attending Knorr’s Nutri-Sarap: Tulong sa Malusog na Bukas event that brought together nutrition experts, Knorr representatives, and even one of my favorite foodie influencers, “Lumpia Queen” Abi Marquez, who gave insights on the nutrition situation in the Philippines.
Serving up Knorr Nutri-Sarap
Aside from providing us with food products to enhance our meals and make us more versatile in the kitchen, Knorr has been spearheading the Nutri-Sarap initiative for over twenty years now to make nutritious and delicious accessible to Filipinos.
Starting as a humble feeding program in 2002 to evolving to nutrition education, Knorr prides itself on their “ feeding to teaching” journey. They’ve now reached millions of families through recipe books, nutrition learning modules, and getting together with key partners like the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Department of Education, the Department of Science and Technology’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute, and more.
“We at Unilever Philippines remain committed to contributing to a healthier Philippines,” shared Unilever Philippines chairman and CEO, Fredy Ong. “We look forward to working with the government and other stakeholders to help combat malnutrition in the country.”
The home cook experience
Listening to their key testaments and stories, the event made this home cook realize that inputting nutrition into your meals doesn’t have to be a difficult or even boring process. I learned that small things like their pork cubes are a great source of Iron, and their products have been developed and tested to become a source of immunity-boosting nutrients and made with real ingredients.
When you realize the attention and care that Knorr puts into their products, you can’t help but also go the extra mile to make sure you’re eating something good for your body.
One of the highlights of the event was the cooking demo and taste-testing session by Forbes 40 Under 40 foodie influencer, Abi Marquez. In front of the crowd, she prepared munggo nuggets. You read that right.
Using simple ingredients like a cooked cup of munggo, Knorr pork cubes, onions, garlic, baking powder, cornstarch, and some spices, she was able to serve us up crunchy nuggets that made you forget it was made with such a healthy base. As someone who despised munggo as a kid, this was a revelation.
“If you can dress up your healthy food that will make you eat it more, that’s a good thing,” she shared. “Because for me, food isn’t just sustenance, it’s also entertainment.”
Indeed, our relationship with food is personal. As something that used to keep me busy through the pandemic, it’s now become a form of experimentation and discovery during my free time. For Abi, it has become her career.
Just as we choose our relationship with food, there’s empowerment in giving people the option to prepare it. Knorr also handed out their Nutri-Budget Journal which compiled 63 nutritious and budget-friendly breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes coming from local chefs and nutritionists.
Each page of the booklet had the ingredients needed and proper portions according to the Pinggang Pinoy Principles so you get the recommended nutritional intake, and more. Modules like this don’t just help on-the-go home cooks like me but are also for families that want variety in the dishes they make.
There’s something to be said about a company acknowledging its responsibility to provide consumers with proper nutrition. While our eating habits start at home, initiatives like Nutri-Sarap can help us make better decisions on what to put in our food. With their mission to reach 15 million Filipinos by 2030, Knorr is well on their way to sustaining the Knorr Purpose of being a force of good in food. – Rappler.com