How many varieties of oil do you make? Why is karupatti healthy? Which oil do we consume everyday? Students from National Model School and Thailaxmi Matriculation School were full of questions as they watched oil being extracted in a traditional vaagai mara chekku .
A fresh batch of shiny black til seeds is placed in a wooden mortar and ground with a pestle without any application of heat. The students take notes. “It’s our duty to expose future generations to such healthy traditions,” says B.S. Venkatachalam of Varunas Organic ( Ph: 77088-95597 ).
Over 50 students gathered at his unit in Ramanathapuram to learn about the wooden mill that was used by our ancestors. “They learnt that the cold-pressed oil has better nutritional benefits. And that the cold-pressed groundnut oil can be used for deep frying while gingelly oil extracted from til seeds can be used in daily cooking. One has to keep rotating the oils used in every day cooking to ensure good health,” he says. Venkatachalam now wants to request all schools in Tamil Nadu to visit the unit and learn more.
V.K.S.K Senthil Kumar, correspondent of Thailaxmi Matriculation School in Thudiyalur, says that the visit is a part of an awareness drive among students on consuming chemical-free products. “At our school, a committee comes up with a food policy that is implemented at the campus and eventually the students follow the same at homes too. We strictly avoid anything that is made with refined flour (maida) like parotta and breads. We also avoid refined sugar, and fried items like chips, and noodles, cold beverages, and bakery items.”
The students are given a glassful of raagi malt in the evening for the daily requirement of carbohydrates and calcium. Keerai soup is also on the menu. “We are particular about promoting traditional snacks that are healthy. Instead of chocolates, our students have sweets made from groundnut. We wash our vegetables in brine to remove chemicals. We are careful about fruits too. The ones that are artificially ripened can be carcinogenic. We stay off them,” says Senthil Kumar.
For the students from National Model School, it was an outing to get a practical exposure on how oil that is healthy can be made in a small scale. “They understand the concept of going organic better when they see the process for themselves,” says their teacher Parveen Banu.
At the school, the teachers have lunch with the children in the classrooms to promote healthy eating habits. The adulterant-free milk comes from the farm run by the school and they also grow their own pesticide-free vegetables. They steer clear of refined oils and use only cold-pressed oils.
Venkatachalam says that students are a starting point to make a great impact in moving towards a healthy lifestyle. “Everyone wants to make the shift but are not sure where to begin. Going for healthy alternatives in cooking oils is the first step. I also want to set up a laboratory in Range Gounder Street where people can bring any brand of refined oil they use at home and test the contents. The amount of saturated fat in some can be shocking. They can get the test done free,” he promises.
Children should also be exposed to lessons on how and from where the food on their table comes from, says M. Vivek. His Taakka Uzhavan Organic ( Ph: 98944-36969/ 77081-07272 ) unit also makes cold-pressed oils.
“Children should be educated to appreciate bitter tastes too in food. For example, to eat bitter gourd or dosa made with a sprinkling of gingelly oil that has a tinge of bitterness to it.”
Vivek says though going organic is the key to good health, they have to learn to identify produce that are organic from source. “For example, from the smell of the greens, one can identify if it is grown in drainage water or not. Children should learn the smells, colours and textures of vegetables to choose the right ones. This can happen only when they have dedicated classes to teach them the farm-to-table process of the vegetables we consume everyday.”
