India's indifference towards food processing industry

 How India lost the bus of commerce and trade when it boasts of its glorious past knowledge of herbs and their properties which is very true. 

The world must address certain chronic conditions like diabetes, BP, blood coagulation, muscle weakness  through food items that are healthy, tasty, easily digestible and maximum absorbable by the human body rather than through pills. 

In fact, mostly, even now the medicines that most of us consume to address these conditions are from herbs, leaves, flowers, fruits and so on. 

It is really unfortunate that while Thailand, Philippines & Vietnam have promoted the processed agro products in USA & Europe, India with a far superior quality and greater quantity of agro products has been busy catering only to the local market ( which of course is too huge to be ignored) that it not only missed the bus in capturing the processed food market but proudly published its data of raw material exports of all sorts like rice, chilli, veg, fruits, cotton etc.

For example, starting from coconut & its products from Thailand, mango and its processed versions and many fruit slices, chips from Vietnam have greater presence in USA & Europe.

India proudly calls itself the rice bowl of the world as SA used to call itself the Sweet bowl ( sugar cultivation). Both require huge amounts of water, labour intensive and not so good for the health of the modern lifestyle of many involving very  less physical activity. Of course, now some new methods of cultivation from Israel ( less water consuming) and a few new varieties of sugar and rice produced in India , some rice ( in very small quantities in Japan) with Low GI have come up, but their usage and availability both are very limited.

Metformin is derived from the plant, Galega officinalis Linn. G. officinalis is commonly known as Goat's rue, French lilac, Italian fitch and Professor-weed.

BP from Rauwolfia Serpentina and the politics and false claims and credits in Science around its derivative Reserpine.

Blood thinning properties in turmeric, ginger, garlic, cinnamon etc. 

Vitamins , trace minerals and proteins in many seeds, kernels, leafs and fruits.

Fibers in vegetables that help clean the kidney like banana stem juice which is the best diuretic.

Coconut milk with its lauric acid is a wonder chemical that helps gut microbes and increases LDL .

Pineapple that has both pre and probiotic . Grapes and brown skin of ground nuts have resveratrol that helps to strengthen the blood cells

Jackfruit that secrets and stabilises insulin. 

Ordinary curry leaves contain the best source of iron.