Overcome your fear of healthy food at Sugarleaf

Step into Sugarleaf from busy Wilson Street in San Juan and you’re greeted by a little nook with books and magazines lying about, chairs and tables inviting you to spend a few hours of quiet time inside, and shelves beckoning with wares that just happen to be mostly green. There's a fridge displaying luscious desserts to satisfy your sweet tooth, and drinks of various colors and flavors to quench any thirst. Above the counter is a menu filled with the standard café fare: sandwiches, salads, pastas.

Just as you’re deciding what to order, the words creep up on you: vegan, vegetarian, healthy, cleansing, protein, fiber. Oh no, you’re in a health food café!

Don’t run and hide. Relax, take a deep breath, and sit in one of the cozy chairs. Maybe proprietor Angelo Songco will come to your table and chat you up. He’s going to show you why you shouldn’t be afraid of healthy food. You might actually even like it.

Healthy dessert

Yes, dessert can be healthy. Just look at the menu: Vegan Chocolate Cake, French Apple Torte with Crème Anglais, Pistachio Sans Rival, Raisin Oatmeal Cookies, and Raisin Cinnamon Bread. If we didn’t know that chocolate cake was vegan, we would never have guessed that it had been made with no eggs or butter. The French Apple Torte may not be vegan, but it’s made with organic flour and coconut sugar, and is still better for you than any apple pie from a fast food chain or supermarket.

According to Angelo, all the pastries are made using only coconut sugar, which has a low glycemic index; this makes it the perfect sweetener for diabetics. Suchero, the brand of coconut sugar used by Sugarleaf, is sold in the shop as well. “It has a very mild coconut taste, and is sold in a kilo pack and in sachets," offers Angelo.

They also use wheat flour. “As much as possible, we will use only organic ingredients, as long as they’re available. If not, we really have to make some compromises," he says.

The organic choice

Have a look around, and you’ll see that the shelves are displaying not only books and magazines on health and nutrition, but also fruits, herbs, and other organic foods.

But why go organic anyway? It’s expensive, and the produce is hard to find. Organic food is pang-mayaman, pang-sosyal, pang-diet. It’s just gulay, for crying out loud. Why does it cost so much?

“It’s true, it’s expensive," Angelo admits. “But people have to appreciate the effort that goes into growing these products. It’s a law of supply and demand. Most vegetables use fertilizer, pesticide, and other chemicals to make sure they can produce year-round and make their produce bigger, just so they can sell more. Organic vegetables are grown without fertilizer or pesticide, so the produce is not always as big, and the harvest is not always as regular.


“We respect Mother Nature, so we plant only what’s in season. If it’s not in season, it won’t always be in the store. We use organic compost, which we make ourselves, and also sell. We don’t use anything non-organic when we make our compost. If we did that, then the compost wouldn’t be organic either."

Majority of the produce sold at Sugarleaf comes from LaTOP, a cooperative of farmers in Northern Luzon. These include leafy greens that grow well in the mountains. On the shelves you’ll find fresh herbs and other leaves: arugula, lettuce, basil.

Other produce such as upo, okra, and sili are sourced from Laguna and other lowlands. All the organic produce sold by Sugarleaf comes from sources that are certified by the Organic Certification Council of the Philippines (OCCP).

Workshop food

While Angelo raves about all the yummy and healthy food they serve and sell, Aileen De Guzman will convince you to take the raw foods route. “You know, my gas consumption has gone down, because I don’t cook my food anymore!" Aileen proudly says.


Part of the drive towards healthy living has been a movement towards raw foods, and Aileen is one of its staunch advocates, but she admits it’s not an easy choice to make. “It’s an acquired taste, and you have to ease into it."

Aileen conducts workshops on raw foods and the various ways you can preserve and prepare them. But she takes your lifestyle into consideration. “I teach people how to make healthy eating easier. So in my workshops, there is a rule of fives: 5 ingredients per dish, 5 minutes to make, and 5 minutes to clean up."

Aileen’s workshops discuss a variety of raw food topics: superfoods, fermenting, cultures, live bacteria, dehydrating. The people who attend include vegetarians, those seeking solutions to their health problems, and environmentalists. She tells stories of workshop participants who arrive skeptical and expect to go home hungry, only to end up unable to finish all the food they have made. According to Angelo’s enthusiastic press releases, “Participants are encouraged to come on a not-so-full stomach. Yes! Healthy raw super foods can be filling!"

Exotic health foods

No, Sugarleaf doesn’t offer exotic, mysterious foods that promise longevity and virility. But Angelo did introduce us to a few new interesting things.


Kombucha, for instance, is tea fermented with a solid mass of yeast and bacteria. Sold in bottles like iced tea, it comes in different flavors like apple and berry. It’s said to be good for cleansing and detoxification, so Angelo recommends that you don’t drink too much of it. Drink it cold with lots of ice, because it tastes pretty strong.

Then there’s kefir, which is another fermented drink. Similar to Lactobacillus casei Shirota strain (Yakult, to people who didn’t pay attention to the commercials), it’s full of live microorganisms, bacteria and yeast. It can be made with milk, soy, coconut milk, even plain water. Sugarleaf sells Goody Kefir, which is made locally. It’s sold as a smoothie and can be mixed with different fruits. It is also used to make ice cream, pastries, and sauces for sandwich wraps.

If there’s a way to make a vegan or vegetarian version of any food, rest assured Sugarleaf will find it. Angelo also makes sure everything tastes good, something many health food cafés seem to neglect. - YA, GMA News

Sugarleaf is located at G/F Health Cube Building, 226 Wilson Street, West Greenhills, San Juan.