Laoag: At least eight teams composed of four members each from the city's Rural Improvement Clubs showcased their culinary skills at Aurora Park on Monday afternoon, presenting innovative snack recipes featuring moringa as the main ingredient. Laoag City tourism officer Mary Jane Pascual-Lea±o told the Philippine News Agency on Monday that the Marunggay Cookfest aims to encourage the development of more moringa-based food products for both tourists and local consumers.

According to Philippines News Agency, "Marunggay" is the local term for Moringa oleifera ("malunggay"), which is a well-known backyard tree in Ilocos. The cook-off, participated in by various villages, is one of the highlights of the Marunggay Festival, now in its fifth year. The festival promotes "marunggay" as a "superfood" because of its rich nutritional content and versatility as an ingredient in a wide range of dishes.

Featured entries in this year's cookfest included chicken siomai with "marunggay" leaves, lumpiang malunggay fruit with jicama (yam bean), and marunggay maruya, among others. Other popular marunggay-based products in Laoag include marunggay ice cream, miki, polvoron, mason, and coco-marunggay cookies.

Studies have shown that marunggay is considered a "miracle plant" because it contains compounds such as simple sugars and rhamnose, glucosinolates, and isothiocyanates, which have been reported to possess hypotensive, anticancer, and antimicrobial properties.