Glenmark Foundation Empowers the Nutritious India Dream through “Meri Poushtik Rasoi – Season 2”

The pan India “Meri Poshtik Rasoi’ cooking contest is aimed at discovering nutrition rich traditional and local recipes from the Indian kitchen   

Over 700 participants from 22 states and 100 cities signed up for the contest and shared recipes for a healthier India 

According to a WHO report, around 37% of children in India under the age of 5 are underweight, and around 8% are severely malnourished.

The recipes will be compiled into a cookbook that will help to create awareness on the need and methods to cook nutritious and locally relevant recipes 

by Shrutee K/DNS

Mumbai: Glenmark Foundation, the CSR arm of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals in association with Idobro Impact Solutions, Sheila Raheja Institute of Hotel Management and A Perfect Bite Consulting announces the grand finale of the second edition of ‘Meri Poushtik Rasoi’. The pan India ‘Meri Poshtik Rasoi’ Contest is aimed at discovering nutrition rich indigenous recipes from the Indian kitchen.

The second edition of the contest saw a huge response with more than 700 participants from over 22 states signing-up for the contest and sharing recipes for a healthier India. The contestants participated in 3 categories - NGOs working in the space of maternal and child health, Students/ Professionals related to nutrition or hospitality and anybody who has a personal interest in nutrition. Ms.Brinelle D’souza, Ms.Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal, Chef Yogesh Utekar and celebrity Chef Varun Inamdar are the eminent jury members. The finalists have come from diverse locations such as Bareilly, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune and Pakur.

Talking about the Contest, Ms Cheryl Pinto, Director – Corporate Affairs, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals said, “Malnutrition is a major concern in India. Through Glenmark Foundation we have focused on addressing the issue of malnutrition in the country and it is our endeavour to continuously find innovative ways to combat malnutrition. ‘Meri Poushtik Rasoi’, is one such initiative in that direction. Through this initiative we aim to influence the food and nutrition culture in India. It is encouraging to see how rapidly the response and participation from across the country has increased from Season 1 which was conducted last year. We truly believe that this mix of participants from across India, will enable us to collect and share a wealth of traditional food knowledge that can serve the collective good.”

The ‘Meri Poushtik Rasoi’ cooking contest will help to draw out and document the existing knowledge on nutritious, traditional local food and take it to a wider audience for advocacy around a more nutritious lifestyle. Over the years, we envision to compile all the selected recipes from the contest into a ‘Cook book’ which will act as a catalyst to build capacity of people working in the field of malnutrition.

Malnutrition in India

According to the Report of World Health Organisation, about 38 per cent of the children under five are affected by stunting and about 21 per cent of children under 5 have been defined as ‘wasted’ or ‘severely wasted’ – which means that they do not weigh enough for their height. Moreover, 51 per cent of the women of reproductive age suffer from anaemia. Only about 10 per cent children under the age 6-23 months were reported to receive an adequate diet. This inequality in access is accentuated by the stark state level disparity in nutritional status.

About the Meri Poushtik Rasoi Contest:The Indian home kitchen is rich in traditional, nutritional knowledge on regional foods, local ingredients, heirloom recipes and food lore. Knowledge that has been passed down through generations of home makers and traditional cooks through the ages, but is getting lost over time as families get smaller, time gets scarce and convenience becomes primary. The pan India Meri Poushtik Rasoi Recipe Contest will assist in identifying, collating and appreciating the nutrition rich native recipes we have in Indian cuisine, which could offer an answer to curb malnutrition at a local level both in urban and rural areas using local and traditional ingredients, method and knowledge.

About Glenmark Foundation:Themed around ‘Healthier Children, Healthier World’, Glenmark Foundation (the CSR arm of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals) is actively working towards improving maternal and child health.  Glenmark Foundation aims to encourage a positive health seeking behaviour among pregnant women and mothers with infants, and caregivers towards right nutrition including – good hygiene practices and ensuring complete immunization for children. Along with its NGO partners the foundation has undertaken several community programs focused towards reducing infant and child mortality among the vulnerable population groups. The various interventions in child health are spread across Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Gujarat in India and Nairobi in Kenya.

IDOBRO Impact Solutions: Idobro is a social enterprise that facilitates an active and deeper model of engagement to map and implement innovate and sustainable solutions through a 5-step process to Inform, Interface, Interact, Integrate, and Impact. Idobro seeks to “multiply opportunities and partnerships for women, social and green initiatives to access markets, build capacity, create linkages and deliver solutions for socio-environomic impact”.

Idobro provides research, linkages, mobilization, stakeholder relations, project implementation and evaluation based on the objectives and stage of maturity of the initiatives / enterprise.

A Perfect Bite Consulting: A Perfect Bite® Consulting offers a range of communication design, strategy, planning and execution services to clients in food production, retail, publishing and hospitality to reach out and connect with their consumers. The firm’s promoter, Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal, is a published author, columnist, gastronome, menu consultant, food historian and teacher with more than 15 years of experience in the Indian food industry. Rushina, and her team, experiments, curates, designs and develops new ideas around food and food products at APB Cook Studio, the firm’s state-of-the-art home kitchen in Mumbai. The studio regularly organizes cooking events and workshops around ingredients, products and themes that are meant to inspire people to cook at home.