TIRUCHY: Health consciousness has increased over the recent years and one of the significant changes seen in most households is people replacing white sugar with jaggery and 'nattu sakkarai.' Millets are also seen taking the place of refined flour, and, when it comes to festival season, can "healthy sweets" be left far behind?
This Deepavali, several small bakers and sweet stall owners are exclusively selling millet-based sweets and savouries. Many big outlets have also started offering sweets with zero white sugar. One such start-up that exclusively sells millet/herbal naatu sakkarai cookies is Green Lips Foods and Packages, which sells them under the brand, Pot Foods.
Started by T Rajamanikandan three years ago, the cookies are in much demand this festive season. Rajamanikandan is the research and development in-charge and assistant professor, Department of EEE at Kongunadu College of Engineering and Technology in Thottiam.
The start-up sells 10 varieties of cookies like white lotus, banana stem, vallarai, thoothuvalai, avarampoo, hibiscus, moringa, amla and mudakkatran keerai.
"All our biscuits are made without maida and white sugar. We use millets and naatu sakkarai. We are seeing that at least one person has blood pressure and diabetes in every house. To cater to such people, and generally encourage healthy snacking, we thought of making these biscuits. Fructose is better than direct sugar," says Rajamanikandan.
The cookies are sold all over the country and through e-commerce too.
"Since we attend several seminars, we always learn about new trends. In such a seminar held a few years ago, we learnt that many youngsters are getting diabetes, and one of the reasons might be maida and white sugar. We wanted to make biscuits that would help people stay healthy," adds Rajamanikandan.
Students of the college have also played a major role in the start-up, he says. They did the early surveys before launching the products. Agriculture engineering students helped in deciding the composition of the products and also provided technical support and created the website. About 30 students are involved in the start-up.
Manikandan is now working on making a soya chunk kind of product using spinach varieties and using stevia (zero calories) in the cookies.