Traditional Food and Cooking Practices to Strengthen Present-day Food Security

Abstract

Purpose: Food is an integral commodity as well as communal and cultural inheritance. Food influences everyone's lifestyle, welfare and habits over and above it is the planner for land, water, energy and ecosystem services. Food has a connecting power; it can connect us with different cultures, traditions and religions. Furthermore, food is a cross-sectional commercial activity and hence closely connected to other activities comprising health, tourism, safety, security and sustainability. Food and gastronomy are gradually acknowledged as potentially contributing factors for the sustainable development of regions. Food security is a measure of the accessibility of food and one's ability to access it. The main challenges of food safety are limited land for agriculture, climate change, world population, increase demand for food, organic farming, the limited availability of land for farming, food wastage, and less storage availability. The worldwide amalgamation of many traditional and ethnic foods has brought varied combinative foods. This food adds a new dimension altogether and creates new challenges for both producers and regulators. Hence, the functional ingredients of these foods, holistically impact health. Now, people realized that healthy ageing or development of the quality of life as one age is also an area in which the nutritional value of food can strengthen the body's cells and also helps in preventing or delaying the diseases setting at an earlier stage. Thus, the emergence of traditional and ethnic foods rise higher with the integrated science-based approach for healthy living and safety. Traditional food and gastronomy practices by applying the knowledge of approximately 5000 years beyond, guarantee that modern science and technology will aim at providing the authentic food that the consumer wants to consume but it is made with safety and carries a responsibility to ensure that the nutritive value and health benefits of this food are preserved as it reaches to the consumer.

The objective of writing this research paper is to emphasis on the following things.

1. Ways of reducing food wastage


2. Promote agricultural diversification


3. Expand the current Infrastructural platforms


4. Minimize the yield gap


5. Promote traditional and regional food