Sattvik food fest drops street food handvo & dhokla

Stepping up their efforts to ensure quality, the organisers of Sattvik food festival, Gujarat's largest and most-awaited food festival, have banned Gujarati delicacies handvo, dhokla and khichu from their menu. The reason? They are easily available in roadside eateries.

Not just that, the organisers, Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI), have also decided to allow limited number of stalls this year, also to further up quality. The three-day 15th Sattvik food festival will begin on December 23 at AES ground, Bodakdev.

Confirming the same, Ramesh Patel, secretary, SRISTI, said, "For the first time, we have banned items such as handvo, khichu, dhokla, boiled corn, etc. We don't want to promote food that are easily available on roadsides. The idea of this festival is to promote traditional dishes. We have also decided not to have cheese and paneer in the festival as they are difficult to digest, and hence have no place in satvik food."

Professor Anil Gupta, founder of SRISTI, said, "Sattvik has been trying to attain higher and higher degree of authenticity in offering the traditional tastes of India and an organic India through the creative and innovative platform like the exhibition of innovations by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) and other such organisations.

"We also invite foodPreneur start-ups and small enterprises run by women and others to promote value addition in nutritious food. 

Unless farmers do that, their income will not increase. We should not forget 'jaisa ann, waisa mann.' So unless we eat healthy, live healthy and think healthy, we will not make our children and future generation and India healthy. There is a need to bring back the wisdom of grandmothers back into our lives."

According to Patel, the food festival will also host a community kitchen (food lab) where people will be taught how to cook healthy using the right vessels, through the right process and with the right emotions. Over 50 stalls from different states and 75 stalls from Gujarat will serve traditional food items during the festival.

"The festival is aimed at providing a platform for popularising traditional recipes made from lesser- known crop varieties such as kodra (paspalum scrobiculatum), bavta (eleusine coracana), ragi (nagli), samo (echinocloa colonum), jowar (sorghum vulgare), bajra (millet), makka (zea mays), etc.