It Sure Ain’t Cocaine: How to Use Betel Nut and Why You Probably Don’t Want to

Jerick preps my chew: moma, or betel nut berry; slaked lime; and a pungent leaf.

FROM COCAINE TO TOBACCO TO COFFEE, many addictive substances, no matter their place of origin, eventually gain a global following. After all, they’re addictive! But not so the betel nut, which I recently encountered on a visit to Batad, a tiny rice farming village in the Philippines jungle.

While trekking Batad’s vertiginous rice terraces, I noticed that my guide Jerick’s teeth and gums were turning a dark shade of orange. A cracked bit of something clung to his lower lip. “May I ask what’s in your mouth?”

“Moma,” he said, which Google Translate informed me was betel nut, the preferred chew of Bloody Mary in the old Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific.

“Oh no way! Can I try it? Will you teach me?”

“Are you sure?”

“Myrna whipped out a ziplock baggy of moma supplies.”

Moma, technically a husked berry rather than a nut, is chewed widely in Southeast and South Asia, especially by drivers and other manual laborers looking for a hands-free stimulant. More formally known as acela nut, it grows on acela palm trees, which thrive in jungle habitats like Batad’s – making it cheap and readily available. 

Jerick seemed surprised at my request. He warned that, like tobacco, the first experience with betel nut was often disappointing. It would likely leave me dizzy and also lack the warming, mildly stimulating, and relaxing effect that regular users enjoy.

“I’ll be careful,” I promised. “I just want to see what it’s like.” Also I was under the impression, likely from reading National Geographic magazine as a kid, that betel nut stains and loosens teeth. After five years of orthodontia as a kid, I had no intention of fucking up my pearly whites.

The next day, Jerick and I stopped on the terrace of his aunt/cousin/some sort of relative Myrna, who whipped out a ziplock baggy of moma supplies. (Pretty much everyone in the village is related in some way. The culture is tribal and Batad is accessible only by footpath, so it’s insular.)

Chewing moma involves a pleasant ritual akin to tamping a cigarette out of the pack, lighting up, and lighting someone else’s. People who don’t know each other might share moma at their first meeting as a way of connecting, Jerick said.

So it plays a role sort of like coffee, tea, chewing gum, tobacco, weed, cookies, shnaps, or beer, depending on your culture. 

“Most people in Batad, even children, chew moma.”

Jerick took from from the baggy a 2” piece of pungent leaf that he called mint, but which the Internet identifies as acela leaf – from the same tree that produces the nut; a small plastic pillbox of fine white powder; and a chunk of seedy, light brown-orange fruit, maybe an inch long, within a fibrous husk. 

First Jerick removed most of the husk to save for post-momo tooth cleansing. Then he dipped the fruit in the white powder, a form of slaked lime that comes from snail shells. He then wrapped the leaf around the betel nut to form a tiny package. 

This I put in my mouth and chomped, then held the package in my teeth. “Don’t swallow or chew too long or you’ll get dizzy,” Jerick warned. The goal is to make it last from 5 minutes to several hours, depending on how long you want stimulation. I was done in under a minute.

Almost immediately, my salivary glands went into overdrive and I started spitting. (Myrna and Jerick, as seasoned moma users, rarely spat.) As I chewed, pieces of husk started breaking up unpleasantly in my mouth. After three spits, I hocked the whole thing into the jungle and rinsed my mouth with water. 

I felt maybe very slightly light-headed, but not buzzed. As with tobacco and weed, I was completely happy to learn that betel nut is not a vice I am drawn to.

Most people in Batad, even the children, chew moma, said Myrna. It’s good for health, lifts the mood, and is warming in the winter, she said. It’s also something to do when you’re bored.

Jerick, on the other hand, said he believes that betel nut is good for the teeth if you chew it occasionally, but an everyday habit for a year will make your teeth loose.

That’s the word in Batad; science begs to differ. Studies show a link between betel nut and harms such as oral and esophageal cancer, which are more likely if the moma is combined with tobacco, as is common. Jerick and Myrna chew their betel nut with tobacco.

“Snorting white powder achieved a surprising level of glamor in the 1980s”

Australia banned betel nut a few years ago after dentists noticed high levels of oral cancer among older Southeast Asian immigrants. (Fortunately not among the young, who are no doubt busy with sexier vices like vaping.)

Another reason the betel nut habit seems unlikely to spread is that both the fruit and the leaf are chewed fresh, not dried, making transportation logistics harder. 

And then there’s the spitting which, let’s face it, is disgusting. Admittedly, snorting white powder achieved a surprising level of glamor in the 1980s and, despite all odds, oxygen bars were an actual thing in the 1990s. But I find it hard to imagine a reality in which modern hipsters bond en masse by chewing fibrous plant matter that produces unholy quantities of spit.

Moma was fun for me, as an outsider, to try once. But I do hope that Jerick, Myrna, and the hundreds of millions of other moma users across Asia someday get access to accurate information about the risks.

Your intrepid correspondent and the tell-tale sign of moma.