Rejuvenating the ancient Indian food preservation methods: A critical analysis

Right from the dawn of civilisation, every society had this problem: How to save food for the proverbial rainy days - safe from microbes and insects out to spoil it.

The ancient Indian wisdom of preserving food, both perishable and non-perishable, has survived for centuries. Based on wisdom passed through generations, our ancestors practised several food preservation methods. For several years, these methods were on the decline. However, of late they are staging a comeback with necessary modifications. Regardless of the recent advances in modern food storage technologies, the revival of low-cost, readily available, environment friendly ancient food storage methods appear to be a promising option to minimise the post- harvest losses. Understanding the science behind these traditional practices and improvising them to make them relevant in the present context is the need of the hour as borne out by the studies we conducted in different climatic conditions of India. We studied the various food preservation methods prevalent in these regions and reviewed their potential for modern times. There is no doubt that traditional storage methods, when appropriately modified, can significantly reduce losses and contribute to increased food security and poverty alleviation by increasing the returns of smallholder farmers.