Sugar-free mangoes ideal for diabetics introduced in Pakistan

KARACHI: A Pakistani expert has introduced three varieties of sugar-free mangoes ideal for diabetics with having 4 to 6 per cent sugar level, ARY News reported.

Three new varieties of sugar-free mangoes have been introduced in Pakistani markets after a scientific modification by a mango expert at a private agriculture farm in Sindh’s Tando Allahyar.

In local markets, the varieties of sugar-free mangoes are available by the names of Sonaro, Glenn, Keitt.

The varieties of sugar-free mangoes have ended the concerns for people with diabetes as most of the calories in the ‘King of Fruits’ come from sugar. The sugar-free mangoes were introduced by M H Panhwar Farms after the research and scientific modification that took a period of around five years.

While talking to ARY News programme Bakhabar Savera, M H Panhwar’s nephew and a mango expert Ghulam Sarwar told that his elder uncle, M H Panhwar was best known for his work on organic farming and he produced a wide range of research articles and manuals on fruits and others.”

“The Government of Pakistan had conferred Sitara-e-Imtiaz on Mr Panhwar for his research related to fruits including mangoes and banana. After his death, I continued his work and carried out modification after importing different genres of mangoes [from foreign countries] to test its growth in this atmosphere and soil.”

“This project is being run on a personal basis and we are not taking any assistance from the government departments. I just want to introduce these varieties on the national and international level. We think about national interests but not [using this project] for gaining profits for us.”

“There are 44 mango qualitative varieties are available on our 300-acre farm including late, mid and early varieties.”

Sarwar said that he focused to work on three aspects for finding out different techniques to improve the mango production for introducing new varieties, increasing the fruit’s shelf life and controlling the sugar level for diabetics.

“The purpose for these efforts are finding ways to increase the exports. The previous shelf life of mangoes was one week, while it is now increased up to two weeks.”

Regarding his fruitful research to grow the mango varieties ideal for people with diabetes, the expert said that the major varieties including Sindhri and Chaunsa have 12 to 15 per cent sugar. He continued that three to four varieties were now available in his farms with only 4 to 5 per cent sugar level.

“Keitt variety has the lowest sugar level up to 4.7 per cent while Sonaro and Glenn have sugar level up to 5.6 per cent and 6 per cent respectively,” he said. According to the farm’s website, the names of the varieties are named as ‘Keitt (Lal Badshah) Turpentine’, ‘Glenn – Originated from Florida’ and ‘Sonaro – Genetically modified and weighs over 2 kilograms.

He clarified that the diabetics could consume sugar up to 6 per cent in accordance with the medical point of view while nobody would prescribe zero sugar level for even the people with diabetes.

When questioned about the prices, the expert said that the prices of sugar-free mangoes are affordable for common people and it is available in local markets as well. The prices of sugar-free mangoes are equivalent to the normal varieties of mangoes available in Pakistan markets at the price of around Rs150 per kilogram.

Ghulam Sarwar said that the said mangoes are included in late varieties and it will take one week for meeting the maturity criteria. Elaborating about the season of these varieties, Sarwar said that the sugar-free mangoes will reach the local markets after Sindhri and Chaunsa’s season is completed and remained available till August.

According to the website, the agriculture farm had been established by Muhammad Hussain Panhwar, also known as Panhwar, for promoting horticulture fruits in Sindh and Pakistan in order to meet the national and international agriculture market.

It was later converted into a research farm in 1985 to introducing new fruit crops suiting the climate of Sindh and has developed many new varieties of fruit crops, which includes Mangoes, Lychee and many others which are rare in Pakistan.