19-07-2025
How you cook petai matters for maximum nutrients
The best way to ensure that you are getting the maximum amount of healthy compounds in petai is to eat it raw, e.g. as ulam. — Filepic
Petai: You either love it or you're politely pretending to love it at gatherings.
But beyond the strong smell and even stronger opinions it inspires, Parkia speciosa might just be a little health powerhouse hiding in plain sight.
Researchers from Monash University Malaysia have recently taken a closer look at this iconic South-East Asian bean to figure out how different cooking methods affect its antioxidant and antibacterial properties.
Led by food scientist Associate Professor Dr Choo Wee Sim, the team set out to find out whether boiling, steaming or microwaving petai reduces its health benefits.
Turns out, yes, it does, but it also depends on how you cook it.
Petai is rich in phenolic compounds, which have antioxidant properties.
But it also contains rare sulphur-based compounds known as cyclic polysulphides.
These are believed to help fight bacteria and inflammation.
And yes, they're also partly responsible for the smell that lingers long after lunch is over.
Antioxidants help your body mop up harmful free radicals, while antibacterial properties can help fight nasty bugs.
When cooking, it's great to try and keep as many of these compounds as you can, as they add so much value to your meals.
The team found that microwaving petai led to the greatest loss of beneficial phenolic compounds, followed by boiling.
Steaming, on the other hand, was the gentlest, helping retain most of the good stuff.
Boiling and microwaving likely leach phenolics into the cooking water, especially with longer cooking times.
So, while that bubbling pot might be traditional, it's not doing your petai much good nutritionally.
Raw petai showed the highest antioxidant power and antibacterial activity.
In fact, the raw extracts inhibited the growth of 12 different bacteria, including the harmful Staphylococcus aureus , Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli .
After cooking, this effect was noticeably reduced.
The researchers believe this is largely due to the breakdown or loss of sulphur compounds like 1,2,4,5-tetrathiane, which plays a big role in fighting bacteria.
Some new compounds, such as 1,3,5-trithiane and 1,2,5,6-tetrathiocane, were formed during cooking, but they didn't make up for what was lost.
The researchers measured antioxidant properties in two ways.
One (FRAP, which gauges reducing power) showed a significant drop after cooking.
But the other (DPPH, a measure of free radical scavenging) stayed relatively stable, even in cooked samples.
This suggests that petai might have other components, like peptides, that help fight free radicals regardless of cooking style.
So how should you eat your petai?
If you can handle it raw, perhaps with sambal or as a ulam side, that's your best bet for reaping all the health benefits.
But if cooking is a must, steaming is clearly the winner.
It preserves more of the good compounds compared to boiling or microwaving.
This study, which was published on April 16 (2025) in the journal Plant Foods for Human Nutrition , doesn't mean you have to overhaul your petai routine.
But it does give you something to think about the next time you're prepping it for your nasi lemak or sambal udang.
Cooking changes more than just the flavour; it changes the chemistry of the ingredient.
And who knows? Grandma's steamed petai might've been ahead of its time all along.
