I VALUE FOOD , DO YOU?

- September 16, 2020

Valuing the food essentiality has been started from my side and what about yours? We are at the midst of COVID-19 outbreaks, suffering the huge economic loses and food insecurity .During this tough time, corona-virus outbreak has impacts driving up acute hunger in different places and its our turn to play a active role.So, instead of wasting the unused vegetables, we can come up with ideas of storing for the enhancement of post harvest .

I am here, with my tale. It is basically about the knowledge of agriculture and self sustainability.

When I was a child ,I used to love to those people who provided me with flogged chips and cold drinks , where the fries are hard and drinks full of ices, instead of having the food made by my parents at home, to whom I used to think the evil one.

Now, at times seeing to the hungry people , surviving for the daily food , flying like the butterfly for the single lump of food , then I realize the importance food.The single smile on their face, made me to value the food and vegetables importances. from the very day I learn and keep myself for the preservation and management of all the food items giving the value of each bit and each pieces. I was wrong , to think my lovely , beautiful parents as evil one,I hearty apologizes for it .

I was a great hater of karkalo, whose itching nature is really irritating till now.The rapid and heavy growth of it, made my mom to cook as vegetable many times at home, and there isn't any excuses to bunk the vegetable , due to its compulsion nature I resist to be the lover of it. I researched about the health importances of karkalo known as Colocasia esculenta , it has its all part edible via the green leaf , the starchy root, the tuber. The staple food is low calorie but with the high fiber content serves as the balanced diet .Even, it is rich in vitamin A, vitamin C , excellent source of proteins with high level antioxidant has made me to cultivate more Colocasia at my home and share its knowledge with other. Once cooked the irritating aspects is destroyed.

We can use the young green leaf as vegetable during its early time. Here , we can use the young leaf of taro plant avoiding the mature leaf, rain soaked spots, yellowing and dry out leaves at cooking times.

Colocasia esculenta

Similarly, this vegetable don't only have its use at early time but also play a crucial role to reduce food waste ,by the enhancement of post harvest. As , we can make the green leaf to Gaava, ,stem's tardre and tuber as Pidhaalu.like wise , when cutting the stem to smaller size and mixed up it with Urad bean paste after the removal of moisture of starchy stem and young leaf of Karkalo. we can also see it below with the pictures.

Tandre karkalo

Tandre karkalo can be mad by the cutting of the stem of karkalo slightly taking thin slice and keep it under the sun for 3-4 days taking proper care, to remove all the moisture present in it.and finally, after the pure dry of the stem we can store it about 6 months.

Gaava

This is a gaava , which is made from the young leaf of karkalo plant by boiling the rolled leaf and keeping it under the sun for about 3-4 day with the proper care of the it.

Maseura

Chopping the taro stems and leaf into small pieces spread it on a large tray lined with a cloth or paper towel.After the drying of chopped vegetables, until the moisture get removed and slightly wilted, it is mixed with Urad bean paste to make Maseura .

Taro Tuber; Pidhaaalu

This is a taro tuber , usually used to cooked with Daal which gives the extra flavor to the food and also rich in proteins.Even, it is consume after boiling and eating with the taste of salt.

similarly, we can also tranfer the green bittergourd in to the dry one for storing it likewise in the photos.

dry bitter gourd; Momordican charantia

To the nutshell, these are some of the activities that I have been doing during my lock down .We can also store a lots of vegetables like spinach , beans, pea, cucumber into pickle , carrot , cauliflower and many more. Instead of wasting them , we can store them , get benefited from the post harvest and reducing the food wastage.During this tough time of food crisis , one should play the role of preserving foods from one individual's side to get reach out to the world.