Kashmiris prefer dried vegetables despite health warnings

Rifat Mohidin

Srinagar, December 24

Despite medicos issuing warning against the use of dried vegetables and fish, people in Kashmir still prefer to relish the taste of this traditional food even when the fresh food is available round the year in the Valley.

A number of sun-dried vegetables such as tomatoes, turnip, brinjals, gourd, lotus fruits, green beans and red chillies are sold in markets as well as are sun dried in most of the Kashmir homes during summers to prepare for the harsh winters, as there is always fear of highway blockade due to snow and rainfall during which the prices of fresh vegetables go high.

Earlier, storage of dried food used to be a necessity in Kashmiri homes as due to harsh winters the availability of fresh food was rare. However, today even when fresh vegetables are available in the market people prefer to eat dried vegetables and beverages than fresh food.

“We want to keep our tradition alive. If you don’t eat dried vegetables in Kashmir in winters then you are missing something. My son lives abroad and every time he comes here he takes along a variety of dried foods. They have a unique and different taste,” said Maala Begum, a resident of Srinagar’s Chanapora.

These vegetables could be seen threaded into garlands and hung up to dry by a window all over Kashmir. Some families even dry “haakh” (green spinach) that is the staple vegetable of the Valley.

The doctors have warned against the use of dried vegetables. They say people should see whether the preservation methods are healthy.

“If they are stored well in a safe way then there is no harm in eating them. If there are some microbes present in them, they are not visible to the naked eye. People have to be very careful. The way they are sold here openly on roads it is unsafe to consume them,” said Director, Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Showkat Zargar.

He added that dried vegetables were used in all parts of the world, but their way of preservation was different.

“Dried vegetables sell in all parts of the world but they are dried and preserved in an industrial way. They are even costlier than fresh vegetables, but they are stored and preserved in safe packing,” he said.

Another medical health expert based in Valley says the Valley practices primitive methods of storage of dried vegetables that make the growth of fungus on food easy.

“If air goes into containers where this dried food is stored, it can induce the growth of white colour fungus known as nitrosamines that are in turn carcinogenic. In Kashmir, primitive methods are used for drying vegetables that makes the growth of fungus very easy and make them unsafe to eat,” he said.

Dried vegetables are also costlier than fresh ones. One kg of dried tomatoes (tamatar hachi) costs Rs 240, bringal (wangan hachi) Rs 160, bottle gourds (ala hachi) Rs 240, turnip (Gogji Ara) Rs 160 and haand (green leaves) Rs 200. Dried fish costs between Rs 100 and Rs 900 depending upon the size and variety of fish.

For decades, people in the Valley have been sun drying fruits and vegetables to preserve for winters. In the absence of a cold storage facility and canning units in the Valley, sun-dried vegetable does the job for Kashmiris.