Now, vegetables in capsule and powder form
A professor from Kota has come up with capsules, tablets and powders made from nutritious vegetables.
Mamta Tiwari, who is the director of planning and monitoring and professor of home science at the University of Agriculture, has prepared the capsules, tablets and powders from around half a dozen vegetables and spices, including spinach, carrot, cauliflowers and leaves of drumsticks, quinoa, garlic and amla (Indian Gooseberry).
She claims that these can be consumed daily to compensate nutritional deficit.
Tiwari, who has sent these to the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering (Bhopal) for their chemical analysis, will begin clinical trials on humans after getting the reports and also apply for a patent.
“Many a time we see that people do not eat or are not fond of a certain kind of vegetable because of its taste or smell. So we have prepared their capsules after processing these vegetables. The capsules can be taken twice a day,” said Professor Tiwari.
Dehydrated powders of the vegetables were prepared using the electronic dehydrator machine at the Agriculture University of Kota. They were then filled into capsules shells procured from the market.
“Every capsule comprises 500 mg of dehydrated vegetable powder. The nutritional value of the vegetables is preserved in the capsules and tablets,” she said.
These capsules should be consumed within a year from manufacturing and can be kept at room temperature, said the 54-year-old professor.
“The cost of each capsule ranges between Re 1 and ₹2. The cost of manufacturing ₹2 capsule is ₹1.30 and the cost of manufacturing Re 1 capsule is 40-45 paisa. So far around 500 capsules of each of the seven varieties of vegetables/spices have been prepared,” said Tiwari.
Giving an idea of the amount of vegetables used to prepare one capsule, she added that 500 mg of spinach capsule is prepared by drying around 20 gram of spinach.
She revealed that around 15 farmers have approached her for learning the skill of manufacturing the capsules.
Accepting that the capsules cannot be compared to cooked or raw vegetables, she said, “Certainly these capsules cannot be a substitute for raw or cooked vegetables, but these capsules are meant for those who for any reason are not able to consume cooked or raw vegetables,” she said.
Tiwari informed that she is also planning to make capsules of bitter melon (Karela) and fenugreek (Methi) since people don’t like to eat them raw because of their bitter taste.
Professor GL Keshwa, vicechancellor of the Agriculture University of Kota, said that the university is carrying out chemical analysis of the capsules and powder prepared from the vegetables and spices after which the university will sell them as they are beneficial to people.