Ahmedabad: Sattvik food festival mandates 2 dishes of millets by every stall

The city's most awaited food festival, Sattvik, has mandated two dishes of millets to be sold at every stall. The organisers this year aim to convey and encourage the use of millets, which are a rich source of fiber and minerals.

Furthermore, like last year, the organisers have banned street food, Gujarati traditional food, and food items that are easily available.

Interestingly, the 16th Sattvik food festival organised by the Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI) — that celebrates traditional food — will not be held at the same venue as last year.

Speaking about the new mandate, Ramesh Patel, secretary, SRISTI, said, "We want more and more uniqueness as a flavour of the festival. Also, we want people to use more millets like ragi, jowar, and such that are packed with nutrition and contain high fiber. While there used to be an instruction every year for stalls to use more millets, they somehow were not using the same. Hence, we have mandated using millets this year. The festival will also have posters on nutrients and millets across the venue, to spread awareness."

There will be a total of 150 stalls. SRISTI is helping the participants with recipes, to ensure they are comfortable using millets. The three-day festival will be held from December 22 to 25.

Workshop on what our grandmoms ate for healthy living:

For the first time, the festival will host a workshop by grandmothers. Professor Anil Gupta, who has been spearheading the festival and other innovation activities, said, "Our aim is to reach out to elderly women, grandmothers, who have never consumed any medicine, only because they ate well. These women will be sharing their food habits and lifestyle which has led them to live a healthy life." SRISTI is targetting nearly 50 such elderly women to conduct the workshop.

Changed venue:

The venue of the food festival this year has been changed as the AES ground behind Doordarshan is not being rented for any event. Confirming the same, Patel said, "We have moved to two lands, owned by AES itself, towards Vastrapur lake, a few metres away from the previous menu. Keeping parking notification in mind, we have hired one land for parking and other for the event."