A Tamil food festival aims to educate people about the pluses of eating local and ditching junk food
Early this year, a study by the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer called the widely-used herbicide, glyphosate "probably carcinogenic in humans". (`Carcinogenic', in layman terms, is an agent that causes cancer). The alarming bit, says Siddha doctor Sivaraman, is that while the herbicide has been banned abroad, Indian farmers continue to use it on their crops.And that's not all. Excessive use of polished rice, maida, sugar, hormone-fedantibiotic-fed broiler chicken in our diet have led to an alarming increase in cases of noncommunicable diseases (or NCDs) such as diabetics and hypertension among others. "In the next 10 years, India's major health challenge is going to be NCDs," explains Sivaraman. "There is also a high incidence of cancer. Before, India reported a large number of cervical cancer cases. But now that is being overtaken by breast cancer.Before, we used to say prevention is better than cure. But now, we say prevention is cure," he adds.
The Tamil Food Festival organised by Mumbai Vizhithezhu Iyakkam and Nalla Soru hopes to combat this serious health and medical issue, by urging Indians to revert to traditional food cultures and ditch `MNCs' junk' food for indigenous food grains such as millets. They plan to do so by serving food based on a variety of millets such as foxtail millet, pearl millet and kodo millet. The dishes include ridge gourd soup, kodo pakoda, barnyard millet curd rice among others. There will also be a workshop on how to cook organic."We want people to go back to their roots and have organic food that's free of pesticides and chemicals," adds Sivaraman. Guests at the festival will be welcomed with a traditional `summer' drink made out of tamarind, lemon, ginger, jaggery, cardamom and cinnamon which will be served from the a clay pot.
Nalla Soru founder Rajamurugan explains that millets are a good source of fibre, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. "In villages, food is medicine and vice versa. For instance, if you suffer from cold or fever, they will immediately consume rasam made from horse gram instead of medicines. But now, because of Western influences, we no longer consume our traditional food items. This food festival will recreate those old traditional recipes, using our indigenous food grains," he explains.
The aim is also to spread awareness about the harmful effects of consuming foods such as oats, olive oil, maida and refined sugar, among others. "Branded atta flour tends to have extra gluten, which leads to stomach cancer," adds Rajamurugan. "Oats has high fibre and very little carbohydrates and minerals. It has no other source of energy. Your fat will burn and get converted into energy and you will lose weight. But your food has to have equal amounts of protein, minerals, carbohydrates and so on.So, after three to six months of losing weight, you will begin to suffer from liver and lungs-related issues as you are not consuming enough minerals and proteins," he says.
Dr Sivaraman adds that bhajra, ragi, jowar and millets do not, by default, have pesticides. "Whether packaged foods such as noodles have permissible amounts of preservatives is not the question.The question is whether we need to eat them in the first place," he says.
WHEN : Today TIME : 11am to 6pm
VENUE : D S High School, near SIES College of Science and Arts or Gurukripa Hotel, Sion Circle, Sion
ENTRY : Rs 300 per head
Early this year, a study by the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer called the widely-used herbicide, glyphosate "probably carcinogenic in humans". (`Carcinogenic', in layman terms, is an agent that causes cancer). The alarming bit, says Siddha doctor Sivaraman, is that while the herbicide has been banned abroad, Indian farmers continue to use it on their crops.And that's not all. Excessive use of polished rice, maida, sugar, hormone-fedantibiotic-fed broiler chicken in our diet have led to an alarming increase in cases of noncommunicable diseases (or NCDs) such as diabetics and hypertension among others. "In the next 10 years, India's major health challenge is going to be NCDs," explains Sivaraman. "There is also a high incidence of cancer. Before, India reported a large number of cervical cancer cases. But now that is being overtaken by breast cancer.Before, we used to say prevention is better than cure. But now, we say prevention is cure," he adds.
The Tamil Food Festival organised by Mumbai Vizhithezhu Iyakkam and Nalla Soru hopes to combat this serious health and medical issue, by urging Indians to revert to traditional food cultures and ditch `MNCs' junk' food for indigenous food grains such as millets. They plan to do so by serving food based on a variety of millets such as foxtail millet, pearl millet and kodo millet. The dishes include ridge gourd soup, kodo pakoda, barnyard millet curd rice among others. There will also be a workshop on how to cook organic."We want people to go back to their roots and have organic food that's free of pesticides and chemicals," adds Sivaraman. Guests at the festival will be welcomed with a traditional `summer' drink made out of tamarind, lemon, ginger, jaggery, cardamom and cinnamon which will be served from the a clay pot.
Nalla Soru founder Rajamurugan explains that millets are a good source of fibre, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. "In villages, food is medicine and vice versa. For instance, if you suffer from cold or fever, they will immediately consume rasam made from horse gram instead of medicines. But now, because of Western influences, we no longer consume our traditional food items. This food festival will recreate those old traditional recipes, using our indigenous food grains," he explains.
The aim is also to spread awareness about the harmful effects of consuming foods such as oats, olive oil, maida and refined sugar, among others. "Branded atta flour tends to have extra gluten, which leads to stomach cancer," adds Rajamurugan. "Oats has high fibre and very little carbohydrates and minerals. It has no other source of energy. Your fat will burn and get converted into energy and you will lose weight. But your food has to have equal amounts of protein, minerals, carbohydrates and so on.So, after three to six months of losing weight, you will begin to suffer from liver and lungs-related issues as you are not consuming enough minerals and proteins," he says.
Dr Sivaraman adds that bhajra, ragi, jowar and millets do not, by default, have pesticides. "Whether packaged foods such as noodles have permissible amounts of preservatives is not the question.The question is whether we need to eat them in the first place," he says.
WHEN : Today TIME : 11am to 6pm
VENUE : D S High School, near SIES College of Science and Arts or Gurukripa Hotel, Sion Circle, Sion
ENTRY : Rs 300 per head
Source : Times of India
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