Cekok Lengkuas to Increase Your Appetite

Children need lots of nutrition. Decreased appetite in children will have a negative impact on their growth and development. In addition, decreased appetite also affect their immune system. This will result in their susceptibility to certain diseases.

In the past, around the 90s, most Javanese people used the cekok (a method of administering jamu by squeezing the jamu essence into one’s mouth, especially children and oftentimes forcibly) to overcome their children’s appetite problems. One of the cekok ingredients is a squeezed of papaya leaves which tastes extraordinarily bitter. Children, of course, hated the taste. Hence, the word cekok is often used by Javanese mothers as verbal weapon to scare off their lack-of-appetite children. However, usually after being fed by the cekok jamu, the child’s appetite increases and is willing to eat.

Apart from using papaya leaf squeezes, you can try an alternative to lengkuas squeeze to increase appetite, the cekok lengkuas. Lengkuas and a mixture of several other ingredients can be processed into a drink that is quite delicious to overcome appetite problems.

Here are the ingredients and ways of making cekok lengkuas to increase appetite.

Ingredients

• 20 g lengkuas
• 3 mengkudu/noni fruit
• 20 gr kencur/aromatic ginger (Kaempferia galangal)
• ½ tsp. coriander powder
• 1 clove garlic
• 3 seeds of tamarind
• Palm sugar to taste
• 500 ml water

Ways of making:

1. Except palm sugar and tamarind, wash all ingredients and cut into pieces.
2. Boil all ingredients in water, including tamarind and palm sugar.
3. Let it boil and until the water remain 250 ml.
4. Cool and then strain.
5. Drink 2 times a day for 1 week to get maximum results.

Reference

Suparni, Ibunda dan Ari Wulandari. 2012. Herbal Nusantara: 1001 Ramuan Tradisional Asli Indonesia. Yogyakarta: Rapha Publishing.