Just the mention of ghee roast dosa can have us Indians drooling and fantasizing about our next tryst with this culinary perfection. Dosa, now an ubiquitous south Indian dish found across the world is made from a fermented batter of rice and lentils, fried in clarified butter. Sadly, we often find ourselves wallowing in guilt and rationing our calories for the day after this indulgence. At first glance, it might seem like ghee is the villain in your torrid love affair with dosa. In fact, it’s only playing a supporting role. Believe it or not, the real offender is rice, masquerading as a wholesome ingredient in a variety of our beloved dishes — from biryani to kheer.
It takes 5000 liters of water to grow a meager 1 kg of rice. 5000 LITERS! Talk about high maintenance. And it’s guilty of so much more. By covertly making it’s way into at least a third of our daily meals over just a span of 70 years, rice holds fair share of the blame for contributing to rising levels of obesity and heart disease.
But this wasn’t always the case. The mainstream adoption of rice and wheat into the traditional Indian diet can be traced to the Green revolution in the 1950s. In an attempt to reach food sufficiency, indigenous species of rice and millets were unceremoniously shown the door only to be replaced by its flashy alternatives— chawal and gehoon. Prior to the green revolution, millets had been an inseparable staple of our thalis. Being rain-fed crops they require significantly lesser water than rice and are more resilient to lord Indra’s wrath, the unforgiving god of rain. These coarse grains are rich in fiber, packed with nutrients and have a low glycemic index. In other words, if an environmental activist and nutritionist were to make a baby, millets would be the best case scenario.
With a string of fad diets doing the rounds, it was only time before someone noticed millets and elevated it to the coveted position of ‘wonder food’. Even the government took heed of its multi-fold benefits and declared 2018 as the ‘Year of Millets’. Why then do we see more of this grain in intellectual discourse and less on our plates? After millets were ousted by high yielding varieties of rice and wheat, it continued to be consumed by farmers and laborers while the wealthier strata embraced rice/wheat hence gaining popularity as “poor man’s food”. Additionally, many of us associate millets with memories of archaic recipes that did little to make them palatable to a generation spoilt by choice. I vividly remember the first time I tried ragi mudde, a finger millet dumpling of sorts. While it’s true that mudde are packed with nutritional goodness, it is not a recipe ideal for initiating novices to the world of millets. Since then, I’ve tried a variety of dishes such as ragi dosa, makkai roti and kodo pulao that are quite delicious and have turned my initial impression on its head.
I claim to be no grain connoisseur. Nor do I claim to have adopted a millet diet myself. My fondness for rice has made transition messy at best. None the less, millets are making a comeback in our kitchen, albeit slowly. The ragi chips are nice, the millet museli is definitely an acquired taste am still in the process of acquiring. But it’s a start… a little more fiber for me, a lot more water for the planet.
All we knead is a little more millets! :)
