Kudumbashree’s focus on nutrition as part of Poshan Maah observance

In Kozhikode, the Kudumbashree district mission has been organising food festivals featuring dishes made using millets, tubers, and various kinds of leaves in wards and panchayats for the past month as part of the Rashtriya Poshan Maah observance. The mission, which is organising Poshan Maah activities in convergence mode to mobilise the people and reinforce nutrition and health behaviours, has also been holding cooking contests as it focusses on local and healthy dishes that were always around but not much in vogue, besides promoting healthy ways of cooking without sacrificing on flavour.

“The food festivals feature local healthy and tasty foods that have existed for long but have not been explored much in an effort to popularise them and introduce their nutritional value to others. Take millets for instance. They have gained in popularity recently, but dishes made using ragi, kambam, and other millets had always been cooked. The food festivals promote these healthy recipes without compromising on taste, so as to appeal to children especially,” says Nishida Saibuni, Kozhikode district programme manager, Kudumbashree.