Dear Health-Conscious Reader,
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“I didn’t know you had cactus in Bali.”
I had never seen anything like it. I looked down at my bleeding calf. It had almost torn a hole in my only pair of shorts.
I hadn’t meant to walk into it, but I swear, you step off the sidewalk in Bali and you’re in the jungle.
I live in Florida but this was different. It was plants on top of plants. The thickest, densest green I have ever seen. When you’re in it, you know you’re on the other side of the world.
And here I was almost without any clothes.
It had taken me over a day and a half to fly to Bali, and long flights like that are grueling. I was tired, grabbed my pack and got off the plane. I followed the signs to baggage claim and waited… and waited. No luggage.
I went to the airline’s baggage office and they kept me there while they searched for it. After three more hours, they told me they had found my bags.
In China.
It wasn’t until the day before I was leaving Bali that I got my luggage back. Luckily, I had my camera and a few other things with me. But for the first two days I was in Bali, I wore the same shirt, shorts and sandals I was wearing on the plane.
What I had to do was go down to this little flea market in the village where my hotel was and buy a few things. That’s what I wore the whole trip.
So I was happy I had cut my leg and not one of the only other pieces of clothing I had to wear. My new friend Westi kind of chuckled and shook his head.
“This is palm tree,” Westi told me. “Salak, it is called.”
I remember thinking that this spiky cactus couldn’t be a palm tree. Then Westi showed me some others like it, with long leaves – palm fronds – growing out of them. I looked a little closer. Inside the tangle of spikes were some brown pods with pineapple-like scales on them.
“Are those some kind of seeds?”
“Salak fruit,” Westi said. “Thorns protect from animals eating them. The sweetest salak are here in the mountains.”
He reached his hand carefully in between the spiky branches and pulled out one of the small brown pods. I peeled it open and took a bite.
Most salak fruits from other parts of Indonesia are a little like apples because they’re kind of crunchy and tart. And not too juicy.
In Bali, it’s a whole different story. The salak fruit that grows in the mountains near Westi’s home of Ubud have a richer, deeper skin coloring. The fruit inside is tender and tasted incredibly sweet.
Salak is called snake fruit because its thin skin kind of looks like snakeskin. I think it looks more like a flattened pineapple hide.
They’re easy to peel open, and inside are these pods of white, juicy sweet pulp.
The Balinese ferment the pulp and make homemade wine from the juice. I do not recommend drinking more than about two cups with dinner. I didn’t discover that little secret until the next day, unfortunately.
Salak is full of the kind of fiber, micronutrients, and minerals we’re missing from much of our fruits and vegetables in the corporate-farmed Western world.
When researchers tested salak they found that it had significantly more antioxidant power than the so-called “superfruit” you may have heard of called mangosteen.1
These antioxidants – called polyphenols – were also cancer-fighting. Salak extract was able to stop lung and gastric cancers from growing.2
Balinese salak fruit (salacca edulis) have what is called “neo-fatty acids,” a small group of beneficial fats that are anti-cancer and anti-fungal.
If you live in the south like I do, you can grow salak yourself. The palms have to be planted in moist, well-draining soil… and of course, be careful of the thorns.
The seeds and seedlings are available online from places like www.seedwonder.com, www.kadasgarden.com and the Australian seed seller www.daleysfruit.com.au.
There are also marketplaces like www.alibaba.com and www.ecrater.com that have salak for sale. I’ve even seen salak fruit chips at www.21food.com.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
Leontowicz, M., et al, “Two exotic fruits positively affect rat’s plasma composition,” Food Chemistry 2007;102(1):192-200
Gorinstein, S., “The comparative characteristics of snake and kiwi fruits,” Food Chem. Toxicol. Aug. 2009;47(8):1884-91