Maria Orosa

María Orosa e Ylagan was a Filipina food technologist, pharmaceutical chemist, humanitarian and war heroine. She experimented with foods native to the Philippines, and during World War II developed Soyalac and Darak, which she also helped smuggle into Japanese-run internment camps that helped save the lives of thousands of Filipinos, Americans, and other nationals. She introduced to the public the well-known banana ketchup. Orosa completed her bachelor's and master's degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry, as well as an additional degree in food chemistry. She was then offered a position as an assistant chemist for the state of Washington before returning to the Philippines in 1922 to focus on addressing the problem of malnutrition in her homeland. She invented many types of food to minimize the need of imported products to feed Filipinos.