Meet the lady who invented and patented the vegetable pancit canton noodles like squash, malunggay, carrot, pakchoi and spinach. Also violet canton noodle using ubi as ingredient.

The inventor who had patented the technology is Dr. Violeta Salda, director of the BSU Food Science Research and Innovation Center in La Trinidad, Benguet. Although the vegetable noodles are patented under her name, she does not receive any royalty. She has been disseminating the technology to trainees from different parts of the country.

How is the vegetable noodle produced? Quite simple, according to Dr. Salda. Wash the vegetables and then steam them. Make a puree by using a blender. The puree is then mixed with flour, egg and salt. After mixing, make a dough out of the ingredients.

If you want green noodle, use the puree of malunggay or spinach. If you want mint green noodle, use Pakchoi puree. If you want orange, use carrots. Squash is for making yellow noodle.

If you use starchy puree like that of squash or sugar beet, use 20 to 40% vegetable puree. If the vegetable is watery like pakchoi, use only 20 to 20 percent.

Other patented noodles are Udon noodle and Fetuccini noodle. Dr. Salda also pakes baked products using vegetables like carrots and some others.

By the way, the BSU Food Science Research and Innovation Cente4r was set up in 2008 with initial funding of P10 million provided by the Arroyo presidency. The P6 million was used to build the building and the P4 million for processing equipmen. Then Benguet State University lent P3 million for operating expenses. Later, then Agriculture Sed. Arthur Yap gave P5 million for funding activities that include training of entrepreneurs who would like to go into food processing.

By the way, Dr. Salda finished her BS Agriculture course and her masters degree at BSU. Her PhD was obtained from Hong Kong University where she specialized in food science, nutritional analysis and product development.