Jeemol Koruth Verghese makes no bones about her commitment to encouraging healthy eating habits, especially when it comes out of an oven or a bakery. Bread, and the amount of preservatives that go into each loaf, was a concern which led her to start teaching bread making. She confesses to being more concerned about “ingredient quality” than how pretty a bake looks. Taking an idea of creating a healthy diet culture forward she has come up with ‘Eva’s Healthy Box’.
“The concept was born out of two facts - first the knowledge that a family, on an average, spends Rs.200-300 daily or weekly at the bakery stocking up on margarine-filled, preservative-packed stuff. Secondly people don’t have the time to bake. So I thought why not provide a healthy alternative, out of a box,” Kochi’s own bread activist says.
Passionate about spreading the healthy eating message, Jeemol has been conducting baking classes for more than a year now at her Eva’s Healthy Bakes.
We are talking on day after the first ‘consignment’ of 60 boxes had left. Well worth the effort, she says. Jeemol, cautiously, doesn’t claim that her bakes are 100 per cent organic, but does peg the figure very close. She cannot vouch for the baking powder to be organic, for instance.
“The ingredients are sourced from known organic producers, and I use hand milled flours. Milling flour mechanically involves high temperatures and subsequent loss of nutrients, hand-milled flours don’t have that kind of nutrient loss.”
Two women, her assistants, help her, the rest she does on her own. Since she does not employ bakers and with her being the only baker in the picture she feels what goes into the box is ‘homemade’ and packed with nutrition.
The beauty of artisan baking is its randomness, the absence of uniformity, “The ragi cookie today might taste different next week, these are not mass produced fare. These are made single-handedly, by my two hands, that’s why I say that this is from my home to yours. The satisfaction that comes out of this is immense.”
What goes into the box keeps her creative juices flowing, planning what she is going to put into the box next week excites her. “It is as much of a surprise for me as my customers.”
She plays around with what goes into the box, her idea is ‘seven days seven bakes’.
Each box has seven bakes, this week it was whole wheat bread, muffins (3-4), loaf cake, two or three types of cookies, crackers and/or brownies depending on the types of cookies. The packaging is straightforward, in keeping with her ‘investing in ingredients’ philosophy.
Jeemol likes to work with variety even when it comes to flours - ragi (millet) and corn for instance, dry seeds ( “we tend to use very few of these, which are rich sources of Omega 3 fatty acids ”) such as flax, pumpkin; organic vegetables such as carrots, zucchini, beetroot and others.
Organic produce, washing and drying seeds before use, washing and drying vegetables - “Everything I do is as I would do at home for my family especially my kids.”
