being an organic indian

the question I’m being asked the most lately is what got me interested in the organic food movement in the first place, and what got us all started.

The answer takes me back to the time when I was a young adolescent. Dad was living away from our city as he was temporarily posted in a very remote village in Orissa called Kantabaji. And whenever he came home to visit us, he brought along small portions of groceries like pulses (musoor dal, moong dal, chana dal, arhar dal etc), rice and millets from there. Strangely, these things tasted way better than the dal, chawal and atta we were used to eating on a daily basis. The fact that they tasted so much better blew my mind. I had never given anything more than a passing thought to dal, which happens to be one of the most commonplace of Indian cuisine, but THIS dal was so fabulously yummy, it cultivated in me a new found appreciation of the humble dal!

It wasn’t technically an organic dal, but dad said that the cultivators there were so very poor, they didn’t even have the money required to buy chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and therefore, they cultivated food the traditional Indian way. Which happened to be organic by default. And if this was the real taste of food, why are we tampering it with half-baked science and making it so dull and boring, stripping it of its nutrients and natural wholesomeness?

I believe that the farmers that are still growing food this laborious and time consuming but healthier way deserve to be paid a premium, and our children deserve to taste food the way it is meant to taste like. not genetically altered or injected and sprayed with poisons. And that makes me an organic indian.

what makes you an organic indian?

buying organic on a budget

This is a reproduction of an article we read on chefatlarge.in

Previously we discussed the potential harmful effects of chemical pesticide and fertilizer residues on fruits and vegetables. Studies on their detrimental effects abound in the media and scientific journals, but finding organic produce on a budget can prove to be difficult.
The reality is that currently most organic products are premium goods because of the scarcity of farmers who grow produce the organic way. The market for organic produce is growing slowly but surely, and if you do your research you can find companies in Delhi that sell organic processed products, grains and pulses, fresh produce, medicine, and even beauty products at prices that would fit within your monthly budget if you are willing to prioritize the purchase of chemical- free produce.
However, if you are a health conscious person but are maybe not ready to commit to buying all-organic, you can make a priority list of the products you should buy organic. This will be easier on your budget, stomach, and mind. With fresh produce you must arm youself with knowledge of vegetables and fruits that are the most and least chemical intensive. A recent report describes the 12 crops with the most chemical residue, the Dirty Dozen, and the Clean 15, which need relatively little pesticide. This list was created in the United States, but these fruits and vegetables are common or becoming popular in India as well.
To avoid a chemical cocktail of at least 47 and as many as 67 different chemicals, you must seriously think of buying the organic versions of these vegetables and fruits:
Celery
Peaches
Strawberries
Apples
Nectarines
Blueberries
Capsicum
Spinach
Cherries
Potatoes
Grapes
Lettuce
The ones that bore the least amounts of chemicals were: onions, avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, mango, sweet peas, asparagus, kiwi fruit, cabbage, eggplant, cantaloupe, watermelon, grapefruit, sweet potatoes, and sweet onions. However be careful with fruits like mangoes, because in India they are sprayed with calcium carbide (an extremely poisonous cancer-causing chemical) to make them ripen faster.
Starting with the Dirty Dozen is a great way to shift your spending for vegetables and fruits that are better for you. You can continue buying the Clean 15 from your local sabziwallah. This shouldn’t stretch your budget, and you can eat easy knowing that your family is consuming significantly less chemicals in their daily diet. However organic will continue to be expensive until consumers demand organic and it becomes profitable for farmers to convert their fields. Also, consumers need to prioritize healthy eating in their budgets, instead of eating cheap chemically grown vegetables in order to buy a new handbag.

the organic food scenario in india

in spite of increasing awareness about the ill effects of chemically grown crops and rising demand for organic produce by the educated classes, there still are a multitude of issues keeping the organic food movement in India from taking off like it should.

our aim here is to be able to tackle each of them, one by one.

1 availability. 
Even though dry organic foods like pulses, wheat, rice and spices have a significant presence in most good malls and grocery stores in the cities, the availability of fresh green vegetables and fruits are still a bit of a challenge in most corners. There are shops that exist, but for most city dwellers, it’s still a bit of a treck to travel large distances for their weekly veggies.

 2 pricing. 
Organic produce is going to be marginally more expensive than chemically grown food until it becomes the primary method of food production. As awareness increases, this can be a distinct possibility.

and if we do the math, look at the larger picture and intelligently reconfigure our spending priorities, it can be made very very affordable. Especially if you factor in the rising costs of healthcare and medicines, investing in organic food turns out to be a pretty inexpensive option.

for the record, the same people that tend to say organic food is expensive dont blink before paying 100 rupees for a cup of instant coffee, 200 rupees for a burger, and 500 rupees for an average eat-out.

3 perceptions and psychologal barriers. 
organic food is perceived by a small segment as elitist, only the intelligentsia are into it, and therefore, not for common people like us.

this is our biggest and foremost psychological barrier. If being conscious about your health is the domain of the elite, what is the prerogative of the masses? Spending many times that money at hospitals? We beg to disagree there.

a small minority even considers it a fad, and a western influence.

Needless to say, the converse is more true. Chemical farming can be called a foreign influence, our grandparents only ate organic. Eating chemicals and synthetic poisons were never the building blocks of Indian culture. 

and finally, the advertising generated mentality of the younger generation had been to think it is cool to not care about what you are eating. All the cool people in junk food ads seem to live healthy, happening lives.This thankfully is fast changing, and younger people are seeing beyond big money advertising and realising that it is cooler to eat organic - it only shows that you care about yourself and your environment.