Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Entertainment | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Going organic

If you want a taste of food products grown in harmony with Nature, try Arya

PHOTO: K. ANANTHAN

NATURAL IS IN A growing number of people are taking to organic food.

Eight different kinds of honey, balms and cream made of beeswax and varieties of rice that have not undergone any gene modifications are the attractions at Arya, a store in Ramnagar dealing with organic products.

Organic food as a concept may be just taking off in Coimbatore; but for all those who want to go back to food without any chemical content, visit the new shop on Sengupta Street. This single-room store offers a range of rice, grams, tea, coffee, pickle, squash, spices, snacks and other provisions.

"In regular farming, a lot of chemical fertilisers and pesticides are used, which leave residues in the human body. These can cause cancer, infertility and neurological disorders. The effect of fertilisers is much greater in children. Organic farming is going back to the method of agriculture practiced by our ancestors, without using any chemical pesticides or artificial colours," says K. Baskar of Arya.

So, in place of pesticides and chemicals, farmers use natural manure like cow-dung, waste leaves and practise traditional methods like vermicomposting.

The provisions in the shop are sourced from farmers practising organic farming and most items are certified by various agencies such as India Organic and the Coimbatore-based ISCOP. There are products like sunflower oil certified by the German ECOCERT.

"Our coffee comes from Wayanad, spices from Ooty and rice from Kancheepuram and other areas. We have tied up with some NGOs who are into organic farming," says Baskar.

The products are priced 20-25 per cent more than regular non-organic products.

There are eight varieties of honey on sale, including wild honey, bitter honey, hive honey as well as honey with ginger, pepper, saffron and a combination of ginger and pepper. Alaknanda, a honey collected from mosquito-like bees that dwell in the Himalyan range and have medicinal values, is also available here.

There is also a replacement for the regular petroleum jelly — `winter green' made of beeswax.

Organic farmers too are keeping pace with the fast-food trend and there are the ready-to-eat Andhra Pradesh pesarattu, upma as well as dehydrated bananas with their sugar content intact that can be added to milk shakes.

There is also the stuff from grandmother's kitchen such as puttu podi. A range of pickles from nutmeg to nellikkai is for sale.

Those into organic farming can take home organic fertilizers devoid of toxic chemicals.

ANIMA BALAKRISHNAN

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail