Local Food: The Forgotten Family History
Rujuta Diwekar is a leading nutritionist and exercises science expert. She is one of the most followed nutritionists who has worked with clients from all walks of life, from businessmen to homemakers, students, celebrities and sportsmen. She is also a best-selling author and the country’s foremost speaker on health and wellness. She emphasizes on the blend of traditional food wisdom and modern nutritional science for a healthy body and mind, best reflected through the mantra — Eat local, think global.
In her live Q&A session, she talks about Diabesity and how both diabetes and obesity are interconnected. She mainly focuses on healthy living and takes up various topics that are related to Obesity. She talks about how the government has not made a proper infrastructure to promote a healthy lifestyle. Then she talks about the various perceptions people attach to obesity like being lazy, not exercising or doing something wrong. She then talks about Local Food and emphasises the importance of it.
The write-up focuses on the emphasis on local food and how these indigenous foods that are being disregarded today are actually what help in carrying out a healthy lifestyle.
LOCAL FOOD AND ITS IMPORTANCE
Local food is food that is farmed and produced locally. They are known as ‘indigenous food’ as well. Local food is perceived to be ‘old or poor people’s food’ or even ‘women’s crop’. The roots of these connotations about local food run deep. So deep that people prefer food that comes from another land than the ones that grow here. For example- people in India opt for food like kale, bread, oats and salads for maintaining their diet whereas pulses and ghee if taken in proper quantity, leads to a much nutritious weight loss.
Indigenous food is disregarded today as people believe the food that has been exported is much more nutritious than the locally produced. Little do people know that local food is better for health for a few reasons. To start off, local food often retains more nutrients. They are allowed to ripen naturally unlike the food that travels long distances is picked up before they are ripe. And food picked fresh and in season doesn’t have to travel far to be sold.
Rujuta Diwekar talks about how there has been a ‘nutritional transition’ from Indian to Western food choices and how this is one of the reasons for the people getting obese these days. She says that sticking onto just salads and bread to get thin is just a myth. Indian food like pulses and ghee has similar and better effects than western food.
Furthermore, she even talks about how the pulse industry has declined and this, in turn, has an ecological effect. Growing pulses leads to the production of more nitrogen in the soil which in turn increases the fertility of the soil. The decline in the growing of pulses hampers the livelihood of the farmers.
She connects local food to various aspects that play an important role in emphasising the importance of the same. She talks about how the agriculture ministry and health ministry should come together to promote this ideology so that people are aware of the importance of the forgotten food that is equally nutritious and beneficial to good health.
CONCLUSION
We talk about local food, its importance and how various factors are required to promote it. One needs to measure crops by their nutrition instead of yield. Even though the green revolution emphasised on high yielding variety crops, the importance of local food is more than the former. After all, they have been in our family for a very long time and one should never forget one’s family history.
References:
- Jha, P 2018, Are forgotten crops the future of food?, BBC, viewed on 23 August 2019, < http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180821-are-forgotten-crops-the-future-of-food>.
