Illipe Nut

Illipe nuts come from a group of tall dipterocarp trees native to Borneo, mainly Shorea stenoptera, Shorea macrophylla and related species. The fruit is a nut with two or three long papery wings that spin like a helicopter when the fruit falls, and a woody, oval shell about two to four centimeters long surrounds a large, oily kernel.

Fresh kernels are cream-colored and richly fatty. The nuts are mostly collected from the forest floor in the seasons when the trees fruit heavily, often at intervals of several years, and then dried and cracked.

Most of the commercial product is a solid, pale yellow fat with a mild, slightly nutty smell, sold in blocks or flakes as illipe butter.

The trees are native to the lowland rain forests of Borneo, with some related species in Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia and the Philippines. They belong to the dipterocarp family, a major component of Southeast Asian forest canopy. The wings that give the family its name come from the Greek words for two and wing.

The common name illipe is often traced to the Tamil name for the related mahua tree, whose oily seeds have a similar use in India, and the word has been used loosely in trade. Tengkawang is the Indonesian and Malay name for the Borneo species, and engkabang is a local Iban name in Sarawak. Because illipe is applied to more than one plant, the botanical source should be checked when buying.

Forest communities in Borneo have gathered illipe nuts for generations, using the fat for cooking, as a hair and skin dressing, and in some places as lamp fuel. The nuts could be kept for months after drying, so they were useful in seasons when other food was scarce, and harvesting them was often a community effort at the time of mast fruiting, when many trees produced seed together.

Trade carried the nuts and their fat to Europe, where the fat was valued as a cocoa butter equivalent because it is hard at room temperature yet melts cleanly near body temperature. European chocolate makers used it, and a European Union directive of 2000 listed illipe among the vegetable fats that may be added to chocolate in limited proportions.

Today illipe is also a sought-after ingredient in natural cosmetics, from lipsticks to body butters. Forest loss in Borneo threatens the trees, and conservation and community harvesting programs have been established to protect the species and give forest people a stable income from non-timber products.

The principal use is the fat, which is refined and blended with other fats as a cocoa butter equivalent in chocolate, confectionery coatings and bakery products. It is valued because it helps chocolate keep its shape in warm weather.

In cosmetics, illipe butter is used in lip balms, moisturizers and hair-care products as a solid, protective emollient. Locally, the fat has been used for cooking, as a salve and for making candles.

The seeds are sometimes eaten after processing, but most nuts are pressed or extracted for their fat rather than eaten whole.

Illipe butter is mostly made up of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, mainly stearic and oleic acid, which gives it a firm texture. As a food ingredient it behaves like other solid vegetable fats and should be considered part of overall fat intake rather than a health food. Claims about skin benefits rest mainly on its emollient properties and are not backed by large clinical trials. There is little evidence on health effects of eating the nuts themselves.