Pangasinan Food Tour 2014: Alcala

When noodles become a healthy option

Innovations in technology have been prominent these past years. Everyone has always been enlightened on their benefits and the cool features these innovations entail.

What we sometimes miss are innovations being done on food.

We've always known noodles are unhealthy—that's a fact. Despite this, however, we still eat noodles during snack time. Sometimes, we even substitute a pack or cup of noodles to our lunch and dinner. This leads to the conclusion that noodles have been a part of our lives and removing it from our diet, though unhealthy, is a hard thing to do.

But, why do we have to quit eating noodles if something can be done to make it a healthy option?

The answer is we don't. We just pick the one which contains the nutrients our body needs and which doesn't have preservatives.

On Jan. 10, day one of the Pangasinan Food Tour, we learned about Alcala's Veggie Noodles processed at the Alcala Livelihood Center and Veggie Noodle Production. A team of women from the locality work together to produce the healthy noodles which contain—yes, you're right—vegetables.

Here are some of the ingredients...

...to produce this:

The livelihood center produces squash canton and mikilunggay. Whichever you choose, you can be sure that you're putting something healthy in your body in a form which is not difficult to eat.

Composed of bloggers and mediamen, our team was given the opportunity to taste test this wonderful find. They prepared spaghetti—my favorite—and pancit using their very own product.

Veggie spaghetti.

The flavorful sauce of spaghetti made it very exciting to eat. The usual taste of Pinoy spaghetti—sweet with just a hint of sourness—was there, so there was nothing much new about it.

Being a lover of the dish, I finished two helpings and wanted to swallow another, but stopped on my tracks knowing that we still had to do a series of food tasting for the rest of the day.

Pancit

Pancit  is a regular find in Filipino celebrations, but a very healthy preparation is something to look forward to. We tasted their take on this very famous food and concluded: It was yummy!

Visiting the Alcala Livelihhod Center and Veggie Noodle Production was a great way to kick off the Pangasinan Food Tour. When you visit Pangasinan, never forget to visit the place and get your veggie noodles to complement your healthy diet.