Why do we need vitamins?



Vitamins are substances our body needs to grow, function properly, and to fight off disease. But our body cannot produce all the required vitamins nits own. So we turn to food sources and sometimes supplements to get them. All 13 vitamins play a crucial role in our well-being.



Vitamins are of two types: fat soluble and water soluble. Some vitamins that form part of our daily diet get stored in the fatty tissues of our body and in the liver. They remain there for about six months, ready to be used by the body whenever required. Vitamins A, D, E and K fall under this category. In contrast, water –soluble vitamins do not get stored anywhere and are carried in the bloodstream throughout the body. Some of these that do not get used up get excreted in urine. Hence it is important to constantly replenish them, vitamins C and the big group of B vitamins (B1 – thiamine, B2 – Riboflavin, B3- Niacin, B5 – pantothenic acid, B6-pyridoxine, B7-niotin, B9-folate and B12 – cobalamin) fall in this category.



Vitamin A: if you want keen eyesight, then this is the vitamins you need to take. A great immune booster, it also protects the body from infections diseases. It promotes cell development and growth, besides healthy hair, skin, bones and teeth. So, milk fortified with Vitamin A, liver, turna and cod liver oil, orange and yellow fruits and vegetables (carrots, sweet potato, red bell peppers) and leafy greens such as spinach are the foods you need to take to get this vitamin.



Vitamin B: This group, comprising B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9 and B12, provides your body with the energy it needs to get its metabolism going. Besides, B vitamins play a role in producing red blood cells that carry oxygen to all parts of the body as well as boost nerve health. So turn to dairy products, whole grains, wheat, oats, fish, poultry, meat, eggs, leafy greens and legumes to get your dose of Vitamin B.



Vitamin C: This vitamin keeps gums and blood vessels in good health. A powerful antioxidant, it helps wounds heal fast and builds the body’s resistance to disease and aids in iron absorption. Citrus fruits, strawberries, tomatoes, green and red peppers, broccoli and cabbage are rich in this vitamin.



Vitamin D: Make sure your body gets enough of this vitamin if you want strong bones and teeth. This vitamin also helps your body absorb calcium, an essential mineral.



Did you know the body produces vitamin D in response to sun exposure? It is also available in foods such as egg yolk, fish, liver and cereals fortified with it.



Vitamin E: An antioxidant, it protects body tissue from damage caused by free radicals which are compounds that form when our body converts food into energy. It helps cells fight off infections. Almost and peanuts are good sources of vitamin E. Besides, you can get it from wheat, oats, egg yolk and green veggies.



Vitamin K: This vitamin plays a critical role in making the blood clot in case of injury, thereby preventing excessive blood loss. This vitamin is largely present in leafy green veggies and Brussels sprouts and also in milk, yoghurt and cheese.



 



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What is veganism?



The coronavirus outbreak has sparked an interest in veganism with more and more people finding themselves drawn towards plant-based foods and drinks.



Veganism is the practice of avoiding animal products, especially in one's diet. It seeks to exclude all forms of exploitation of animals for food and fibre. In other words, it rejects the idea of commodifying animals.



Those who adopt this philosophy as a way of life are called vegans. They not only avoid animal foods such as meat fish, milk and other dairy items eggs and honey, and animal-derived products such as leather, but also refuse to patronise zoos and circuses that use animals for entertainment. The tem ‘vegan' was coined by Donald Watson of Britain in 1944 to describe non-dairy vegetarians.



Many vegans eschew meat as it amounts to cruelty to animals. Some practise veganism to improve their health. Environmental concern arising out of animal agriculture is also one of the reasons that makes people go vegan. Then, what do vegans eat? A vegan diet comprises food from plants such as fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts, rice wheat and vegetable oils. Vegans consume soymilk, almond milk and coconut milk in the place of dairy milk.



Health benefits



Vegan foods are rich in fibre and antioxidants. They help protect against diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Besides, a plant-based diet could lower cholesterol and the risk for certain coronary diseases while keeping body weight in check.



Though a vegan diet can be male healthy and nutritive with the available alternatives, there is one nutrient - vitamin B12 which our body needs to make red blood cells – that is present only in animal products.



Did you know?



The total number of vegans, vegetarians, and related categories was estimated to be about 8% of the world population as of 2018.



 



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What are the functions of WFP?



What is WFP?



The World Food



Programme is a Rome based United Nations agency that provides aid to nearly 100 million people in about 88 countries worldwide, Entirely funded by donations from government, corporates and individuals, it focusses on providing food aid during emergencies such as wars, conflicts and natural disasters.



The beginning



The agency was founded in 1961, thanks to the efforts of the U.S. under the administration of John F. Kennedy. The idea to provide food aid through the UN system was mooted by the previous president Dwight Eisenhower. The agency, which began functioning with a mandate of three years, soon justified its existence by effectively responding to various crises such as the Iran earthquake that claimed 12.000 lives, a typhoon in Thailand and the Algerian war. It became a full-fledged UN programme in 1965. In the nearly six decades since its inception, the WFP has grown to be the largest humanitarian agency in the world.



Reaching aid



Most of WFP's work is concentrated in conflict-ridden areas as people there are more likely to be undernourished than those elsewhere. Besides specialising in reaching aid to some of the most dangerous and remotest places in the world, the WFP focusses on providing development and rehabilitation aid. It is engaged in supporting school meals projects in different countries, including India. It works in association with two other UN agencies - the Food and Agriculture Organisation, which helps countries draw up policy to support sustainable agriculture, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which finances projects in rural areas. According to the WFP, it distributes over 15 billion rations of food yearly. It has over 5,000 trucks, 30 ships and 100 aircraft engaged daily in delivering food and other assistance to those in need across the globe. That's not all, WFP has created an emergency delivery service that has ensured continuous flow of aid during this pandemic. Can you believe that the WFP has managed to dispatch medical supplies to over a hundred countries to help governments battling COVID-19 in the absence of commercial flights?



 



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How to make date bars?



A date is an oval-shaped fruit covered by tough skin. It may be yellow, orange, red, or green. Its thick, sweet flesh surrounds a single large seed. Dates are a popular treat throughout the Middle East. Make 16 bars.



You will need:




  • 225 gms rolled oats, plain or instant

  • 112 gms all-purpose flour

  • ½ teaspoon baking powder

  • ½ teaspoon salt

  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

  • 112 gms dark brown sugar

  • 225 gms melted butter or margarine

  • 2 eggs, beaten

  • 225 gms finely chopped pitted dates (cut with scissors)

  • 225 gms chopped walnuts, peanuts, or pecans (ptional)

  • 112 gms icing sugar for garnish

  • A large mixing bowl

  • A mixing spoon

  • A greased 20-cm square baking dish

  • Clean hands



What to do:




  • Preheat the oven to 175 degree C

  • Put the oats, flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl and mix well. In another bowl, put the brown sugar, butter, and eggs.

  • Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix well. Add the dates and nuts.

  • Spread the batter into the baking dish and bake in the oven for about 35 minutes, until firm.

  • Remove the dish from the oven. While it is still warm, sprinkle the treat with icing sugar, then cut into squares.



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How to make Fufu (sweet potato balls)?



Sweet potatoes and yams are vegetables that grow underground. They are important foods in many countries. In Ghana, fufu is a national dish made with yams. Make 12 to 18 balls.



You will need:




  • 4 or 5 skin-on sweet potatoes or yams

  • 1.5 litres water

  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

  • 1 teaspoon ground red cayenne pepper, more or less to taste

  • Onions, garlic, or peanuts (optional)

  • A medium saucepan with lid

  • A large mixing bowl

  • A potato masher or electric blender

  • A mixing spoon

  • Clean hands



What to do:




  • Put the sweet potatoes or yams in the saucepan with the water. Ask an adult to bring the water to a boil. Then cover the pan and let the water simmer for about 40 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

  • Remove the potatoes or yams from the heat and allow them to cool. Peel the potatoes, and then cut them into chunks. Using a potato masher or electric blender, mash the potatoes into a smooth paste. Mix with nutmeg, red pepper, salt, and pepper.

  • Wash your hands, then moisten them with water.

  • Roll the mixture in the palms of your hands. Shape the mixture into balls the size of golf balls.

  • Place the balls side by side on a serving plate. Keep them at room temperature until they are ready to serve. Some people sprinkle their fufu with chopped onions, garlic, or peanuts.

  •  



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How to make Bruschetta?



Italian people like to eat their meals one course at a time, starting with an appetizer and working their way to the pasta or main dish. They may start their meal with an appetizer like this bruschetta. Make six servings.



You will need:




  • 1 loaf of Italian bread sliced together

  • 2 or 3 chopped tomatoes

  • 3-4 spoonfuls of olive oil

  • Salt

  • About 12 chopped up basil leaves

  • Serving plate

  • Medium mixing bowl

  • Bread knife

  • Serving spoon

  • Clean hands



What to do:




  • Ask an adult to help toast the bread. Lay the two sides open on the grill for a few minutes until crispy. Then put them on a place.

  • Put the tomatoes in the bowl.

  • Add the olive oil, a couple pinches of salt, and the basil to the tomatoes. Mix well.

  • Spoon the tomato mixture evenly over the toasted bread. Let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes so the flavours can soak into the bread.

  • Cut the bread into sections and serve.



 



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How to make Limonada (lemonade)?



Lemons and limes are natural fruity thirst quenchers. Lemon and lime drinks are popular in many places around the world. Makes 10 servings.



You will need:




  • ½ litres lemon or lime juice (seeds removed)

  • ½ ml corn syrup or to taste (ready-made or frozen lemonade can be substituted for the first two ingredients)

  • 2 teaspoonfuls canned apricot juice from the world food section of your grocery shop

  • 8 small bottles of clear carbonated water

  • Crushed ice to fill 10 glasses

  • 10 peppermint sprigs

  • A jug or large bowl

  • A long-handled spoon

  • 10 glasses

  • Clean hands



What to do:




  • Put the lemon or lime juice in a jug. Add the syrup and apricot juice, then mix well.

  • Fill each glass with crushed ice. Add about 60 ml of the juice mixture to each glass and fill to the top with carbonated water.

  • Garnish each drink with a mint sprig.



 



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What are silly foods?



Does your family enjoy eating toad in the hole, heaven and earth, or hush puppies? Millions of people do!



Every country has some foods with funny-sounding names. Check out these examples, then think of some fun food names you know.



Toad in the hole (United Kingdom) is a sausage baked in a batter of flour, milk, and eggs. When cooked, the sausage looks like a toad peeking out of a hole.



Hush puppies (U.S.A.) are small balls of cornmeal deep-fried in fat. A favourite snack in the southern states, they were sometimes fed to dogs to keep them quiet.



Heaven and earth (Germany) is a side dish that combines apples, which grow on trees (heaven), with potatoes, which grow in the ground (earth).



Egg snowballs (Brazil) is a dessert made of beaten egg whites cooked into balls and placed on a pool of lemony sauce.



Bubble and squeak (United Kingdom) is a mixture of bacon and cabbage or other vegetables that gets its name from the noises it makes in the frying pan.



Dragon’s whiskers (China) are made from oolong tea packed in tiny, straw-like bundles and tied with red ribbon. Oolong is from the Chinese word for “black dragon”. The tied up package looks like a Chinese dragon with whiskers.



 



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What are different eating cultures?



When guests come for dinner, should you stick your hand in the serving bowl, or use a knife and fork at your own plate? At mealtimes, should you sit on the floor, or sit on your chair at the table?



Well, your table manners will depend on where you are. People in different cultures have different eating customs.



If you are from a Western country, you probably eat from your own plate and use a knife, fork, and spoon. But you probably eat some foods, such as sandwiches, with your fingers.



Many Arab families eat from one serving bowl. They eat with only the right hand, whether they use fingers or spoons. In Ethiopia, people use pieces of bread to scoop up food from a common bowl.



In Japan and China, most people pick up their food with chopsticks. The food is served in small pieces, so knives aren’t needed.



People in Western countries sit on chairs at a table when they eat. In the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, people often sit on the floor or outside, on the ground.



 



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What are the types of seafoods?



Suppose you were offered seaweed, snails, or frozen fish eyes. Would you turn up your nose in disgust? Or would you say, “Yes, please!”?



Food usually comes from plants or animals in this world. Some types of plants and animals do well in cold cities. Other types thrive only in rain forests. What people eat often depends on the plants and animals that are near them.



In Japan, seaweed is an important vegetable. It is part of many meals. In Wales, seaweed is cooked with oatmeal and eaten with bacon. Maybe you eat seaweed. Some jelly-like stuff that comes from seaweed is used in many ice creams and jellies.



Snails baked in garlic and butter is a famous meal from France. It’s called escargot. Sea urchins – raw – are also popular there. Many Inuit like to eat frozen fish eyes.



Do you want ants? Honeypot ants drink a sugary liquid from plants called honeydew. They drink so much of it that they look like little walking honeypots. In Australia and Mexico, people pop the sweet insects into their mouths or spread them on toast.



Australian Aborigines like witchetty grubs, the larvae of beetles and moths.



Bird’s-nest soup is a special Chinese dish. It is made from the nests together, the birds use their saliva. This makes the soup chewy!



In West Africa, where people eat few cooked desserts, a favourite treat is sugar cane! Children simply chew a piece of the plant, which grows in West African forests.



Certain foods may seem strange to you simply because you have not learned to eat them. But people around the world eat – and like – many different kinds of food.



 



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What are the ways to prepare food?



It’s dinnertime, and delicious smells are drifting through the air.



Some foods you can simply pick and eat, like a peach. Other foods need to be cooked for hours over a hot fire. People in different cultures have discovered many tasty ways to prepare their food. Dinner might be served raw, fried, boiled, or grilled indoors or outdoors.



Tonight, you’re having fish and vegetables. How do you like them? Raw, boiled, fried, baked, grilled, stir-fried, roasted, or stewed?



In China, Wang Kow watches as his mother pours peanut oil into a deep, round frying pan called a wok. When the oil is hot, she adds meat and vegetables and tosses them as they cook. She is stir-frying the food.



Alex helps his father turn the steaks and sausages on their garden grill in Sydney, Australia. They’re having a cookout.



We often cook food to make it taste better. Cooking meat also make it safer to eat. Vegetables are cooked to make them softer. Dough is baked to make cakes, biscuits, and bread. Soups are simmered to blend the flavours of their ingredients together.



 



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Why do kids love sweets so much?



Do you have a “sweet tooth”? You do if you like sweets, puddings, and other sugary treats. People everywhere find ways to satisfy a “sweet tooth”.



Children in China like “drawn-wire apple”. The apple is cooked in sweet, sticky toffee. When a piece of apple is lifted from the hot dish, the toffee cools and stretches in thin strips like wire.



In Spain, children eat colorful dragons made of marzipan, a type of sweet made of almond paste and sugar.



Some “main course” foods can be turned into treats. Sweet potatoes are made into sweets in Mexico and camote-cues, a sweet snack for children, in the Philippines.



In Myanmar, children love a chewy treat called khaw pyin, made of rice and seasame seeds. Also in Southeast Asia, many treats are made with coconut.



In North America, maple-tree sap is boiled to make syrup. And everywhere, bees are busy making honey all the time. People add these sweeteners to breads, cakes, and other foods.



 



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What are the most widely used types of meat?



Are you meat-eater? If you are, what kind of meat do you like? Beef? Pork? Chicken? Lamb? Where you live might determine what kind of meat you like – and how much meat you eat.



The U.S.A. and Argentina raise lots of cattle, and people eat lots of beef. China raises the most pigs, and pork is popular there. In New Zealand, sheep and lambs are plentiful, including on the dinner table.



The Masai people of eastern Africa live by raising cattle. They get almost all their food from cows. However, they seldom eat meal. They live mostly on the milk and blood of cows.



Your religious beliefs may decide whether you eat meat. In Pakistan, most of the people are Muslims, and they don’t eat pork. Orthodox Jews all around the world choose not to eat pork or shellfish. The Jains, a religious group in India, eat no meat at all.



Everywhere in the world, some people make a personal choice not to eat meat. People who do not eat meat are called vegetarians.



In Pakistan, most people don’t eat pork, but they enjoy lamb. Lamb kebabs are pieces of lamb cooked on a stick with slices of tomato, green pepper, and onion.



 



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What food comes from the sea?



Good news for good eaters! The ocean covers more than 70 percent of our planet, and it is filled with plant and animal life. It has something for everyone to enjoy fish of all kinds – sardines, mackerel, salmon, and herring – and other seafood, such as oysters, clam, crabs, lobsters, shrimps, and octopus. What about a shark steak?



How do you like your seafood? In Sweden, you can try pickled herring, smoked salmon, or baked halibut. In Japan, look for thin, cold slices of something pink on your plate. It’s tasty sashimi – raw fish. You also can fill your plate with vitamin-rich sea vegetables. Seaweed is a popular dish in Japan.



For thousands of years, people everywhere have set out to sea in small boats to catch their supper. Today, huge modern fishing fleets have electronic equipment for finding fish.



People catch lobsters in cage-like traps. Shrimps, crabs, and some fish are caught in nets. Oysters are scooped up by machines called dredgers.



 



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What is the science behind South Indians eating food on banana leaves?



While eating in banana leaf does have health benefits, especially the presence of potassium and ECGC in all products of banana, our South Indian ancestors did not worry about the science but about more practical reasons that the banana leaf offered.



The simple reason banana leaves were used was because,



1. They are long and wide enough accommodate a lot of food.

2. They don’t leak water or any liquid.

3. A new plate for each meal. They are use and throw. No need to clean. Just throw away or compost it.

4. They were probably in abundance, as banana plants would have been cultivated for its other products like fruit and fiber. Bronze or Copper plates would have been costlier and iron plates would get rusted. 5.There was no stainless steel in the past like now. So, banana leaves are an ideal choice.

Roasted banana leaves are good for packaging. We can even pack liquid stuff like gravies, sambaars, and even water with slightly roasted banana leaves. During our train trips we slightly roast the banana leaves and fill up Puliyodharai in it and fold it and tie with a banana fiber. Roasted banana leaves do not tear easily when folded.

6. Even if Banana did not offer any health benefits, it would still be used as plates.

7. Using banana leaf as a plate or a packaging medium is not unique to South India, but also to many other countries, especially the ones close to equator.



 



Credit : Quora



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