Residents cash in on 'cure-all' Chinese fruit

Workers at Ms Jecinta Ndegwa's farm n Kirurumi village in Tetu work on seed beds with pepino melon seedlings. The fruit, which is described as super fruit has been touted as a natural treatment to diabetes, high blood pressure an arthritis among other diseases, hence causing an influx of the fruits in Nyeri markets. Photo by JOB WERU/Standard.

When Jecinta Ndegwa, a teacher, travelled to Thailand and China last year, her blood pressure rose at one point in the journey. She had been suffering from the condition for some time and her daily duties as a senior National Executive Committee member of Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) were affected by it.

"I visited my cousin who lives in China and he advised me to start eating pepino melon, a fruit he described as 'super fruit'," she said.

Ms Ndegwa said after eating the fruit it for some days, she realised her blood sugar levels were stabilising.

"On my way back home, I carried a cutting of the fruit plant with me and planted it on my Kirurumi farm in Tetu, Nyeri County," she said.

Ndegwa cultivated the plant with zeal until it started producing fruits - after about four months. She has since been eating at least two fruits every day.

"One thing I realised was that my health went back to normal. I used to visit the Aga Khan Hospital regularly but that became a thing of the past," she told The Standard in an interview at her farm.

Ndegwa is among a few other people who have become health ambassadors and are popularising the growing and consumption of pepino melon fruits.

Most of the people who spoke to The Standard claimed they suffered from various diseases, mostly diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis, but constant consumption of the fruit had healed them.

Latest craze

The sale and consumption of the pepino melon, which is green with purplish stripes when mature, has become the latest craze in Nyeri.

Although the fruit was not popular until a few months ago, traders have started cashing in due to the publicity it has received and the health benefits claimed by consumers. A spot check at the local Nyeri open air market indicated that one piece of pepino melon, which is the a size of a tomato, costs Sh100.

Some retailers are selling it for Sh200 per piece.

Another patient, who identified himself only as Bernard, said he has lived with diabetes for the last five years, which he managed with daily injections of insulin.

In 2014, Bernard was admitted to Consolata Mission Hospital in Nyeri for three weeks and advised to take the insulin twice a day.

"Doctors told me I would inject myself for as long as I lived. Life was hard - until I started eating persimmon and the chemical solution," he said.

His health status changed immediately after he was given the pepino melon, another fruit identified as persimmon, and an organic solution developed by Charles Eric Black Beard, a British Medical Science engineer and his fellow researcher, David Thuku, who is a director of Community Health Life group.

The duo have specialised in medical research using different fruits and solutions to treat their patients.

Beard and Thuku say the fruits must be grown organically and under certain conditions that involve soil composition and an environment that is conducive to producing the right nutrients.

Right Nutrients

"Farmers must avoid using chemicals and farm inputs to grow these fruits to ensure they have the right nutrients," said Beard.

Thuku said Community Health Life grows the fruits on a farm in Ihururu, Nyeri County.

"We started farming three years ago and have sold the fruits to more than 40,000 people locally and internationally, who have confessed to experiencing healing of various ailments," said Thuku.

"We started by prescribing the fruits to sick people, mostly in mission hospitals, and they were all healed of various diseases after eating the fruits and the chemical solution we give them," he added.

Ndegwa's farm has been reproducing the melon cuttings, which she sows in seed beds for sale.

"I sell a fruit for Sh100 and a seedling for Sh200 for every piece. I am calling on Kenyans to adopt growing the fruit at household level because it has been proved to have so many benefits for the human body," she said.

Internet sources describe pepino melon as a fruit touted as a super fruit native to Peru.

Excerpts from the Healthy Benefits website say: "It has lots of vitamin A, C and K, and also B vitamins, protein, plus iron and copper, which are essential for a healthy immune system, and calcium for bones, potassium, which is needed for relaxing and lowering blood pressure, and pepino melon is a good diuretic too."

The fruit is also said to help people who have had strokes to heal faster and to promote cardiovascular health.