Traditional food on modern Internet

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Chennai, Feb 22 (UNI) With the aim to give a fillip to traditional agro products in the country, two entrepreneurs from Tamil Nadu have developed a unique web portral -- www.ECSAM.org.

www.ECSAM.org or Eco-Cultural and Social Agricultural Marketing was developed by Indian Youth Bank Network Coordinators Ramesh V and Suresh V.

The Indian Youth Bank Network is a NGO working for promoting eco-friendly measures. The duo claim the first-of-its-kind initiative will not only support traditional agro foods but also help agricultural community across the country.

''We have developed the ESCAM concept to revive various popular traditional foods, which are on the verge of extinction due to the spread of fast food culture among the new generation,'' Ramesh told UNI here.

''Our main objective in launching the website is to promote the sales of agro-commodities and products and to deliver the benefits to the society and environment,'' he said.

The other objective were to increase the per capita consumption of nutritious food to help the cause of agrarian community, to offer low cost eco-friendly alternatives to consumers, to reduce environment pollution and preserve bio-diversity.

''As per our initial survey in many villages of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharasthra, it was found that about 90 per cent of people in their respective regions agreed that many traditional Indian foods like peanut burfi, peanut balls, ginger burfi, ladoo, papads and pickles lost their market share to modern foods,'' he added.

Ramesh also mentioned that the traditional foods contained less preservative, promoted low processing and environment pollution.

''Modern foods treated with O3 (Ozone) for preservation purpose cause various diseases like ulcer, diabetes and even cancer,'' he explained.

''NAURU Republic is the best example for the impact of modern foods (non-traditonal) as more than 50 per cent of the population is suffering from obesity and diabetes due to imported modern fast foods,'' he said.

According to duo, the site will soon contain a comprehensive database of traditional foods with photographs to help both the public and the government know the exact place of availability.