: Rare Superfoods For Low-Cal Diets, Blood Sugar More: Unique Calendar Has 25 Of Them #IndiaNEWS #Food There is perhaps no desi superfood that Chennai-based Meenakshi Boopathi has not consumed. At

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Rare Superfoods For Low-Cal Diets, Blood Sugar More: Unique Calendar Has 25 Of Them #IndiaNEWS #Food
There is perhaps no desi superfood that Chennai-based Meenakshi Boopathi has not consumed. At a time when the world is seeing an increasing number of people eagerly going back to forgotten traditional immunity-boosting foods, Meenakshi is an interesting case study.  
Her parents’ home garden has over 20 different kinds of superfoods that she used to eat while growing up. From leaves to stems, roots, flowers and seeds, every part of the plant was used to make delectable and nutritious meals in her house. Her friends and colleagues were often unable to contain their curiosity every time she opened her tiffin box and they caught a whiff of the distinct aroma of veggies and herbs that are otherwise to find in the market.   
Meenakshi attributes this immense knowledge of the health benefits of every kind of superfood in part to ancestral wisdom, and in part to experiential learning.  
“With an aim to preserve this knowledge and share it with others, I started a page on Facebook called ‘Forgotten Foods’ after my sister Monisha suggested it. Here I began posting about the properties, benefits and recipes of superfoods that we have been using for generations,� Meenakshi, a software professional, tells The Better India.  
Taking a gigantic step forward in her endeavour, Meenakshi recently collaborated with Sahaja Samrudha NGO to make a calendar on superfoods. It was published in Kannada and English, and later in Hindi and English with support from Rajasthan-based NGO, Vaagdhara.  
“Sahaja Samrudha is a people’s organisation comprising a network of farmers that share practices and exchange knowledge about sustainable agriculture. The NGO works towards preserving indeginous crop varieties, and every year, they publish a calendar providing information on the same. For 2021, founder G Krishna Prasad asked me to write content on superfoods. Thanks to Sahaja, we got funding from NABARD to publish 1,000 copies,� Meenakshi says.  
The calendar is divided into five segments (two months per segment) edible flowers, fruits and seeds, roots, stems and leaves. There are a total of 25 lesser-known ingredients divided into the mentioned categories.  
The calendar also mentions traditional recipes that are an integral part of local cuisine in the region where the superfood is grown or available.  
The cover page has January and February. It has an image of a tribal woman with rosselle flowers, which are used to make chutney and pastes in parts of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Likewise, the photos for every section are of local people who consume the superfoods on a daily basis to send out a message that it is not challenging to find such food.

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