Staying true to the soil

CHENNAI: The year of coronavirus taught us several lessons — some forgettable, some forgiving, some fulfilling and some others for fuelling our mind and body. Regardless of the nature of what and how it taught us, the pandemic prompted some like city-based friends R Karthik and George C Williams to put this realisation into practice.

What we eat, unmindfully, they understood, is making us sick. Feeling an urgent need to reverse this process, they tried to find answers, and after a series of discussions and planning, the duo set up their maiden venture Seed & Soil Farms. “Without doubt, most of the food that we consume is processed and has preservatives. We focus only on providing what’s naturally good for the human body.

Apart from work, George and I often talk only about food. While the idea of starting a business has been there for over a year, it was executed only during the lockdown. We even had beta testing among friends to see their acceptance to the items we sold,” says Karthik, a film director.

On the shelves of Seed & Soil Farms, which was launched earlier this month, you’ll find cold-pressed oils of coconut, sesame and groundnut; handpound turmeric, wheat, ragi and sukku malli coffee, flours and spices; free-range eggs, ghee, butter; cane and palm products, honey and Himalayan pink salt.

Fresh from farm
Karthik assures that all products are sourced directly from farmers, with no middlemen to sabotage the price or the quality of the produce. They have tied up with farmers from the Kongu belt comprising Coimbatore, Erode, Namakkal, Sathyamangalam, Thalavadi hills and Gobichettipalayam. “For cold-pressed oils, we are closely associated with small-scale industries in the interior parts of Tamil Nadu, who are into extracting the oil using the wooden oil extraction machine.

The coconuts should dry under the sun for a minimum of 3 to 4 hours. It should dry till all the water content in it is drained and becomes copra (kopparai thengai). Once the copras are ready, they are put into the wooden press. The machine slowly grinds the copras to pulp and it releases the first form of oil. It goes under two-three rounds of grinding until all the oil is pressed out of the copras. You see, pure oil is yellowish and not transparent like the ones you buy in any commercial store,” he elaborates.

Likewise, for groundnut oil, fresh groundnuts are cleaned and accumulated in a huge container, explains Karthik. The oil is extracted when groundnuts are slowly crushed in a low heat environment. This process helps retain the natural groundnut flavour, besides retaining maximum nutrition from the nuts. “For sesame oil, the seeds go under a rigorous cleaning process to get rid of any impurities. They are then transferred into a separate vessel and again cleaned in water.

The seeds are then dried in a huge solar dryer for about 24 hours at 50 degrees. The dried sesame seeds are collected in batches and are fed into the wooden oil press machine. Ten per cent of palm jaggery is added to the existing quantity of sesame in the container. The oil is then extracted after grinding them for hours,” he adds. The flour varieties, spices and condiments are also prepared in a similar way.

The demand for free-range eggs, coldpressed oils and honey has given them hope — that slowly, but steadily their venture will transform the consumption habits, shares Karthik. “We use native breeds for our eggs such as Giriraja and Siruvadai. Consuming even four eggs a week is sufficient to give you the necessary proteins. There’s been an increasing awareness for these products among people recently. We will be expanding our list soon,” he says.

Eat and educate
For customers, who are meticulous about reading nutrition labels, it’ll be a relief to browse through their website, which provides a break-up of nutritional value, method of preparation and health benefits of every product. All their products are packed in eco-friendly and re-usable containers. Butter sheets and kraft paper boxes are used to pack flour. Glass bottles are used for honey and ghee.

Tins are used for oils. “We want our future generation to understand the importance of what we dump as garbage. There are fresh green marshlands transformed into mountains of dumpyards and landfills. Hence, we practise only the most natural way to pack our food products. The shelf life of each product is a maximum of one month. We advise customers to empty the tins once in 15 days and then refill to ensure the oil stays fresh,” explains Karthik.

But the sprouting of organic stores has not perturbed the partners. “A large number of organic shop shave mushroomed in the city in the last five years. We don’t know how many are authentic. Our aim is to erase the general assumption that organic products are expensive and only for the elite. Everybody should be able to afford. Health is wealth. If nothing else, this was one major lesson the pandemic taught us. Better late than never to make a healthy choice,” says Karthik.