People tend to consume foods that contain high carbohydrates and saturated fats such as deep fried foods which are potential to build up high cholesterol. People have been familiar to consume carbohydrates more than proteins and fibers. This is evidenced by the composition of carbohydrate consumption in Indonesia that is still around 70 – 80% of the total daily calories, whereas it actually should be 45 – 60% of total daily calories. In our metabolism, excessive carbohydrate will be converted into fats. Fats will be piled up under the skin and inside the body's cells and, if passing a certain level, it will trigger to diseases such as coronary artery disease, obesity, diabetes melitus, and hypertension. Lack of public awareness about the dangers of high cholesterol foods also affects the number of high cholesterol or what so-called hypercholesterolemia cases.
Meanwhile, tempe as one of Indonesia's foods, is abundant, inexpensive yet nutritious. In addition to tempe, there is yogurt, fermented milk product yielded using lactobacillus bulgaricus bacteria and streptococcus thermophillus or lactic acid bacteria, with or without the addition of other ingredients and extra flavours.
Tempe as the ingredient of making yogurt accounts for fiber, something which is missing in the original yoghurt. The effort to replace cow's milk with yoghurt combined with tempe to induclude fiber in the yogurt, is worth appreciated, which can then benefit more than the original yogurt. The idea of adding tempe into yogurt was pioneered by some students of Yogyakarta State University named Aida Lulu Arifah Shalihah, Reka Audina and Ade Nice Fadillah, the trio of Culinary Education Department, Faculty of Engineering (FT) and Sonia Latifah and Wulansari from Biology of Faculty of Natural Sciences. They make yogurt tempe which is beneficial for lowering cholesterol.
According to Aida Lulu Arifah Shalihah, some of the benefits of yogurt for health are its ability to maintain digestion health, overcome diarrhea, prevent the risk of developing high blood tension prevent osteoporosis due to vitamine D and calcium content, and include variety of nourishing substances which are useful to prevent cancer. Consumption of milk fermentation or yoghurt, moreover, has been proven effective to lower cholesterol levels in the body," Aida said. Reka Audina added that tempe is useful as a source of protein. Every 100 grams of tempe contains approximately 20.8 grams of protein and 1.4 grams of fiber that can help lower cholesterol. "In this case, not many people realize the benefits of yogurt tempe" said Reka. “It, therefore, needs to be improved and expand the product knowledge of yogurt tempe in the community." At the end, this innovative product won the grant from Ministry of Research and Higher Education of Entrepreneurship in 2016. (dedy)
