A Renewed Quest For Age-Old Foods

Text and photographs by Kalpana Sunder

India has a rich heritage of indigenous foods that have been used to boost immunity 

My grandmother, like most women of that generation, decided on the day’s menu after taking into account who had a cough, cold, or an upset stomach. She then drew on her traditional food wisdom to cook a meal that would boost their immunity. She would often make a tangy pepper rasam garnished with ghee and curry leaves or a bland lauki kootu (a lentil and vegetable stew made with bottle gourd), wielding her spice box to treat every ailment. Even today, at the first sign of a sniffle, I quickly rustle up her turmeric milk with crushed pepper, an instant balm for a sore throat. 

India has a rich heritage of indigenous foods that have existed for centuries and been traditionally used to boost nutrition or immunity. These include amla (or gooseberries), turmeric and ghee, perhaps the best known among a constellation of such foods. But with our culinary landscape changing along with our eating patterns,  a lot of indigenous wisdom has been relegated to the sidelines.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a superfood as “a food (such as salmon, broccoli, or blueberries) that is rich in compounds (such as antioxidants, fibre, or fatty acids) considered beneficial to a person’s health.” 

Dr Nandita Iyer, nutritionist and author of the recent book Everyday Superfoods says: “Scientifically speaking, superfoods are foods that are concentrated sources of one or more nutrients like vitamins, minerals or antioxidants. These are nutrient-dense foods and can either be general superfoods that are good for overall good health or address specific issues like blood sugar or immunity boosting or cancer prevention.”

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In recent times, several Indians are trying to revive forgotten or ignored Indian superfoods and foods with beneficial properties, by documenting them and suggesting ways to cook with them. Food designer Akash Muralidharan embarked on a project called ‘100 days of Cooking’ — a series on Instagram where he cooked dishes made of 70 forgotten vegetables, such as country cucumber, air potatoes and clove beans. Murlidharan was inspired to do this when he found that many vegetables mentioned in Samaithu Paar (Cook and See), an iconic South Indian cookbook published in the early ‘50s, were no longer found in Indian kitchens.

Meenakshi Boopathi, a software engineer based in Chennai, South India, was influenced by the lifestyle choices of her environmentally conscious parents, who always shopped at local markets, avoided junk food, and tried herbal remedies for ailments.  

“I started a Facebook page in January 2020 called Forgotten Foods, where I posted recipes and discussed the health benefits of long-forgotten Indian foods, including superfoods,” said Boopathi.

A page from the calendar on forgotten foods produced by Sahaja Samrudha 

In 2021, she worked on a trilingual calendar (in English, Hindi and Kannada), which showcased some forgotten foods from India. The calendar was published in association with an NGO called Sahaja Samrudha (or ‘bountiful nature’ in Kannada), which works with farmers on reviving lost crop varieties. 

The well-illustrated 2021 calendar features five categories: edible flowers, fruits and seeds, leaves, stems, and roots and tubers. Each page of the calendar features a group of foods along with their health benefits, and offers at least one traditional recipe, many of which have been gathered from chefs and villagers who cook with these ingredients. From banana flowers and cluster figs to black nightshade — the tiny fruits of a shrub loaded with Vitamin B-complex — these wild foods are a treasure trove of nutrition. 

“Most of these foods are foraged rather than grown,” said Boopathi. “There are edible flowers like butterfly pea with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and avarampoo or senna, which can control diabetes. [There are also] superfoods like purple yam loaded with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. The idea of bringing out such a calendar is to make people aware of the wealth of indigenous foods and superfoods available, their medicinal properties and encourage them to eat local [food].” 

G Krishna Prasad, founder of Sahaja Samrudha, says that their calendar for 2022 focuses on little known tubers and roots.

A large Dioscorea alata, commonly called purple yam or ube, displayed at the Joida Roots and Tubers Mela in Karnataka

“When one visits places like Joida in Karnataka where the Kumbi tribals live, and [organise] an annual tuber festival, you are astounded by the sheer variety of tubers available, from arrow-leaf elephant ear to gigantic taro. The advantage is also that these tubers don’t need replanting every year and can be harvested even after years.” 

Now, his NGO organises a ‘Roots and Tubers Fair’ every year in Bangalore, to popularise these foods that are a nutritional powerhouse.

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Many immunity-boosting Indian superfoods also once served as markers of the changing seasons. Winter foods like gond ke ladoo — made out of edible gum extracted from tree barks — or bajre ka raab, a porridge made of pearl millets, helped boost immunity and ward off seasonal ailments. 

According to culinary consultant and food writer, Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, sesame seeds are an integral part of harvest festivals like Sankranti, at least in part because of their nutritional density.

Leafy greens are a nutritional powerhouse. Many varieties have now been largely forgotten.

“Sesame seeds, a superfood with rich amounts of calcium, magnesium, Omega-6 fatty acids and high amounts of fibre, oil and protein, was used during the harvest festival of Sankranti and in sweets like til gajak or til ki chikki (brittles made with jaggery and sesame), eaten during the winter months,” she explained. 

In the Indian context, an easily available yet often neglected group of superfoods are a variety of dark green leafy vegetables. In recent times, organic stores in some cities do sell these hyper-local greens —- from sour, red-stemmed ambadi or gongura which belongs to the hibiscus family, to Kashmiri haak or collard greens.

In her book, Iyer has included 39 easily accessible superfoods from amaranth to tamarind and wheatgrass. They are versatile, easily available and can be incorporated into your everyday eating. 

“Though many Indian superfoods are not forgotten as such, I would say we don’t value them enough,” Iyer said. “Single polished grains like a variety of millets are available in abundance but ignored by many. Foods like black eyed peas, buckwheat,  pumpkins and drumsticks or moringa pods (rich in Vitamin B-complex) should be part of your daily diet.” 

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Thanks to social media, marketing companies and fitness gurus, superfoods have become a constructed commodity. They seem to come with an exotic back story, which makes them appealing — and accessible — to the privileged, looking for a quick health fix.  (For more on the ‘cool-ification of Indian ingredients, listen to How Indian Ingredients Became Frustratingly Hip, an episode from Bad Table Manners, part of the Whetstone Radio Collective). The market size of global superfoods is expected to reach $ 205.2 billion by 2025. Many ancient Indian foods have been hyped in the West  and have achieved cult status, such as turmeric, jackfruit and moringa powder.

Given the craze for Western diets, many upper-class Indians have shifted to expensive ingredients like quinoa and chia seeds, which  can be easily substituted with cheaper, locally grown ingredients such as millets and sabja (or basil) seeds, which are traditionally added to sharbats in the summer months in India. 

This has far reaching consequences, ranging from deforestation to skyrocketing prices. For instance, many previously ignored Indigenous foods like millets or foraged greens are sold at a premium when they become a fad, depriving the communities that traditionally ate them of vital sources of nutrition or putting them out of the reach of the common man. 

Another problem with blindly adopting superfoods is the fact that there are no set criteria or guidelines that determine what qualifies as a superfood. In some cases, there is also a lack of  testimonial evidence about their efficacy, and the fact that the benefits that are claimed can only be achieved with  huge doses of the active compounds. In fact, in 2007, the EU banned the use of the word superfood to sell products unless there was a “specific authorised health claim” backed by credible scientific evidence.

Iyer says that with more and more Indian people living in urban areas,  and shopping for their food online or in supermarkets, which tend to stock foods that are fast moving or have a long shelf life, we have lost access to a wide variety of  traditional superfoods. Many native superfoods like banana flour or banana stem are time consuming to prepare, and most city dwellers don’t have the requisite time or traditional knowledge to do this. 

People have been using superfoods as a marketing ploy for a long time. At the turn of the 20th century, the United Fruit Company in the United States initiated an advertising campaign to promote banana — a major import — as a superfood, with testimonials by doctors and nutritionists. In 1949, an article in a Canadian newspaper, the Lethbridge Herald, used the word superfood while speaking about the nutritional qualities of a muffin. 

According to Iyer, the problem is that superfoods are looked upon as a “quick fix” to healthy eating. Most people think that including one or more popular superfoods in their diet will solve their health problems or make them healthier. In her book, Iyer emphasises that we have to modify our lifestyle and relationship with food for it to be effective. She also talks about sustainability being an important factor in choosing superfoods.

“[Superfoods] are only one piece of the puzzle,” Iyer said. “But there’s too much focus on this one aspect. Health is a function of so many things, from a well-balanced diet, sleep and exercise to handling stress and having fulfilling social relationships.”

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Prof. Krishnendu Ray, Associate Professor of Food Studies at New York University, disagrees with the cult status given to superfoods. 

“There are no such things as superfoods,” he said over email. “This is merely marketing hype. Almost every piece of writing about superfoods references some super qualities attributed to vitamins or micro nutrients, as if they are found only in that one food.”  

Ray believes that both in the east and west, superfoods are about the search for a tradition that can cure the problems of modernity — such as stress, impurities and toxicity. He says that the vitamins, antioxidants, micronutrients and phyto-chemicals referenced in the health claims about these foods are usually found in many other sources. According to him, no one group of food is going to save us from the ravages of modernity. 

“It is a universal anxiety of the urban upper classes in search of a magic bullet,” he said.

“The reason why most of us don’t know our own superfoods is that we adapted ourselves to the Western nutrition table, where we focused on the macro nutrients like carbs, fats and proteins,” said Ghildiyal. “But Indians have never eaten just for sustenance. The ancient science of Ayurveda guides all our food choices. Indian nutrition has always been about combining  foods in the right way so that it is a balanced diet.” 

According to her, the combination of  dal and rice, for instance, is the most complete  combination of a cereal (or carb) and a protein. The tadka or seasoning is not just to add flavour; its function is to enhance the bioavailability of nutrients and unlock their healing properties.

Akanksha Jhalani Sinha, a clinical nutritionist based in Pune, advises her clients to look at their diets as the first line of treatment, and only turn to supplements in case of deficiencies.  

“Nothing can save us from a disruptive lifestyle or protect us from the changing landscape of food consumption, but [ingredients] like flax or sabja seeds can provide you with a compressed and concentrated source of energy and nutrients that you may lack otherwise,” she said.

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Is there any way to reap the benefits of superfoods without exploiting them or overly relying on them as a magic bullet? 

“The perfect mix would be a blend of  respect for or ancient food traditions which are not documented too well, but passed on from generation to generation, and absorbing the best of Western influences and new research,” Iyer says. “If we stay close to our roots and balance both worlds nutritionally, we will never be deficient.”