26 Multigrain Bird Nest Powder – The Source of Energy and Beauty

Multigrain products feature a mixture of grains such as oat, barley, millet, corn, wheat, rice, quinoa etc. and offer the chance for food manufacturers to produce goods with customized attributes, creating different colours and textures with added nutritional benefits.

Multigrains are a rich source of carbohydrates and thus, provides the energy that we need to conduct our daily activities. On the other hand, multigrains also aids in reducing the risk of diabetes, promotes a healthy digestive system and weight loss, help prevent the development of bowel cancer and reduce the risk of cardiac failures (Malik et al. 2015).





One might ask, having a multigrain beverage is great because of all the aforementioned benefits; but how do we make it even better?! Our answer is. . . add Bird Nest extract!

Believe it or not, edible bird nest is actually made almost entirely from the saliva of swiftlets which mainly inhabit limestone caves (Ma and Liu 2012). According to Hobbs (2004), the largest resource of edible bird nest is Indonesia, followed by Malaysia's Borneo states of Sarawak and Sabah.

The nests are built by swiftlets and are usually situated on the roofs of a cave. During breeding season, a male swiftlet's salivary glands will enlarge, enabling them to craft those wonderful half-bowl shaped nests made of concentric rings using their protein-rich goo.




Touted for its many health benefits, a belief that has been passed down from many centuries ago, today the trade and consumption of edible bird's nest has become a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. This has led many health experts to further scrutinize if the so called health claims hold any water. What they discovered, is that this particular bird saliva, is incredibly nutritious!

The nutrition composition of edible bird nest consists of proteins (62-63%), carbohydrates (25.62-27.26%) ash (2.1%) and lipid compounds (0.14-1.28%) (Aswir and Wan Nazaimoon 2011). Edible bird nest consists of many bioactive compounds, which is responsible for its health promoting effects, including sialic acid, glucosamine, amino acids, lactoferrin, fatty acids, triacyglycerol, minerals, vitamins, antioxidants (Yida et al, 2014), (Yida et al, 2015) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) (Ma and Liu 2012). The latter of which is the likely contributor to why bird's nest is said to help retain our youthful features.

Benefits of consuming bird nest include:




Bird's nest enriched multigrain beverage is a nutritious source of energy with the added health benefits of bird's nest and should definitely be your choice of drink throughout the day!

References

Aswir, A. R. and Wan Nazaimoon, W. M., 2011. Effect of edible bird’s nest on cell proliferation and tumor necrosis factor- alpha (TNF-α ) release in vitro. International Food Research Journal, 18 (3), 1123-1127.

Careena, S., Sani, D., Tan, S..N., Lim, C.W., Hassan, S., Norhafizah, M., Kirby, B.P., Ideris, A., Stanslas, J., Basri, H.B., and Lim, C.T.S., 2018. Effect of Edible Bird’s Nest Extract on Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Impairment of Learning and Memory in Wistar Rats. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2018 (9318789).

Chan, G.K.L., Wong, Z.C.F., Lam, K.Y.C., Cheng, L.K.W., Zhang, L.M., Lin, H., Dong, T.T. and Tsim, K.W.K., 2015. Edible Bird’s Nest, an Asian Health Food Supplement, Possesses Skin Lightening Activities: Identification of N-Acetylneuraminic Acid as Active Ingredient. Journal of Cosmetics, Dermatological Sciences and Applications, 5, 262-274.

Hobbs, J. J., 2004. Problems in the harvest of edible bird's nests in Sarawak and Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Biodiversity and Conservation, 13(12), 2209–2226.

Hou, Z., 2015. Anti-ageing properties of edible bird's nest ascertained by in vitro and in vivo studies in animal model. PhD thesis, Universiti Putra Malaysia.

Jamalluddin, N.H., Tukiran, N.A., Fadzillah, N.A. and Fathi, S., 2019. Overview of edible bird's nests and their contemporary issues. Food Control, 104, 247-255.

Ma, F. and Liu, D., 2012. Sketch of the edible bird's nest and its important bioactivities. Food Research International, 48 (2), 559-567.

Malik, H., Nayik, G.A., and Dar, B.N., 2015. Optimisation of Process for Development of Nutritionally Enriched Multigrain Bread. Journal of Food Processing and Technology, 7 (1).

Tai, S.K., Koh, R.Y., Ng, K.Y., and Chye, S.M., 2017. A Mini Review on Medicinal Effects of Edible Bird’s Nest. Letters In Health and Biological Sciences. 2 (1), 65-67.

Teh, S.S., and Ma, Z.F., 2018. Bioactive Components and Pharmacological Properties of Edible Bird’s Nest. International Proceedings of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering, 103 (7).

Xie, Y., Zeng, H., Huang, Z., Xu, H., Fan, Q., Zhang, Y., & Zheng, B., 2018. Effect of Maternal Administration of Edible Bird's Nest on the Learning and Memory Abilities of Suckling Offspring in Mice. Neural plasticity, 7697261.

Yida, Z., Imam, M.U. and Ismail, M., 2014. In vitro bioaccessibility and antioxidant properties of edible bird’s nest following simulated human gastro-intestinal digestion. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 14, 468.

Yida, Z., Imam, M.U., Ismail, M., Hou, Z., Abdullah, M.A., Ideris, A. and Ismail, N., 2014. Edible Bird’s Nest attenuates high fat diet-induced oxidative stress and inflammation via regulation of hepatic antioxidant and inflammatory genes. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 15, 310.

Yida, Z., Imam, M. U., Ismail, M., Ismail, N., and Hou, Z., 2015. Edible bird's nest attenuates procoagulation effects of high-fat diet in rats. Drug design, development and therapy, 9, 3951–3959. doi:10.2147/DDDT.S87772