The importance of maintaining good health in these times cannot be highlighted more.
Eating right and at the right time is very important for anyone interested in
enjoying the benefits of healthy living. PrahladSukhtankar is the co- curator
of the culinary workshops and events focussed on sustainable living and eating
practices. This is a position he shares with noted Mumbai restauranteur Rahul
Akerkar.
They split responsibilities and ensure
everything moves along fine. His focus is on sustainability and farming. He is
obsessed with highlighting problems in food production. He said “Unless we
learn how the food is produced, we are never going to change our habits. We had
to find a way to highlight the information and we felt workshops, we got people
to speak. Karan Manral is speaking about growing organic in your garden. He
will talk about growing enough for the entire family in your garden without the
help of any outside purchase”.
Another Goenkar Nestor Rangel, an
agriculturist from Goa has brought together close to 500 families to help turn
fallow, unused lands into productive fields. With determination and support
from the St.Estevam-Goa residents, he intends to prove that great things are
possible when the community unites.
Prahlad highlighted the contribution of
four agriculturists who went into the Sahyadri valley and created a sustainable
model there by speaking to the Adivasis and tribals to give up all the bad
habits acquired while growing crops. They were advised against using the
subsidised seeds and instead grow indigenous plants. They wanted everyone to
focus on the indigenous crops of the country. He said “Please understand the
country has huge bio diversity. We have already lost a lot and the four decided
to tell them to go back to their roots and grow all that”.
Under Triple o Farms all these people were brough together and
with Nestor Rangel created a farmer’s market. Importantly they got the Adivasis
to cook in the old ways and highlighted the fantastic taste of the food. He
said it was different between what was available in the shops and in these
outlets.
Their labour of love and determination, the food cooked by them
is available at the farmers market during the ongoing Serendipity arts Festival
More importantly he said, one did not need fertilisers to grow.
Instances of cancer amongst farmers in Punjab had increased dramatically
following the use of fertiliser but that was not the case in the villages in
the Sahyadri mountains where Prahlad spent some time. He said “There were no
instances of cancer and if one looks back in history in the fifties and the
sixties people in these villages lived to the ripe old age of nineties”. This
was at a time, when the average mortality rate in India was in the mid-fifties
or sixties.
All of this, he said, was part of his curation like the farmers
market, the difference between traditional bread and the bread available now
and how the ruling on keeping the cost of bread at Rs 5 had resulted in a drop
in the quality. The battle ahead was long and could be slow but it needed to be
done.
It
is also about helping people hone their craft so that everyone could take
little steps in the battle towards a healthier lifestyle. Each and every expert
is disseminating their information free of cost and the point was to ensure tat
it reached as many people as possible. The goal he said was to inspire everyone
and move ahead towards a healthier world.
