Revitalizing ancient Indian clay utensils and...

Revitalizing ancient Indian clay utensils and its impact on health

Author Name : Dr. Debdip Khan, Dr. Sudatta Banerjee

ABSTRACT There is a proverb in India, ‘we reach the other people’s heart through stomach’. So food has a great impact on our mind also. Art of cooking highly depends on its combining, mixing and heating ingredients. The heating ingredients consist of two parts, first the utensils you are using for cooking and second the type of heating agent (earlier charcoal, clay stove, later kerosene stove, gas stove, microwave etc). Now whenever we are concerned for the utensils we can see our ancestors were used to cook in metal like cast iron, brass, copper or clay utensils. Most important is the benefits of those utensils in preserving the nutritional value of food. Clay utensils almost preserves all the micro nutrients present in the food like rice and pulses whereas modern utensils like modern pressure cooker, steel, plastic are unable to preserve most of the micro nutrients rather plastic add some hazards to the food. For example, cast iron utensils have a great role in increasing iron content in the food specially it effects more in case of acidic food. Copper has a unique power to enhance collagen booster in the food. Brass is very good for preserving water which enhances the immunity power of human. Similarly, silver has an effect on calming the mood disorder but as it is too costly and we can’t afford that so we are not developing our concerns for silver utensils. Now most importantly the clay utensils that has a great impact on immunity. Whenever we concern about clay utensils we can think of our clay potters who are now almost obsolete. Now a days instead of using clay cups tea stallers are also using either plastic cup (which contains BPA) or paper cups (which contains styrene) both are very harmful for human health. Through this paper we want to reintroduce the ancient cooking utensils for promoting better heath along with new employment generation of clay potters, which will lead one step ahead in developing nation’s economy. Tourism can be developed surrounding clay pottery industry to promote taste of ancient India. This paper examines the interplay between health and taste parameters and properties of archaeological earthen cookware.