From Garden to Table

We have known about the principle of primary and secondary needs since primary school. The primary human needs are food, boards, and clothing. It is repeated by our teacher many times when teaching. Food (then interpreted food and drink) is never separated from humans. But do we really understand the origin of the food we use it? It should be a big concern for us. This time I understand why the food is a staple. Without eating we can’t do anything.

Busy activity often makes us unable to control body needs. Working demands sometimes make us leave breakfast because we have to arrive at the office in the morning, also we need to counting the traffic travel happen, so we must leave even before sunrise. The rest time given by the office is not too long, so we choose fast food to get back to work on time. We also often use the time after work to eat at the restaurant, the reason is because we are already tired if we have to cooking by ourself.

Indeed we must pay close attention to everything that goes into the body, especially food. This is important because it has both short and long-term effects. Often we just realize it if we've ever experienced bad things in our body, such as illness until we need to be treated and sacrifice the time to take off absent.

Sehat dengan Tepung Lokal

Kebutuhan gandum di Indonesia tergolong tinggi tinggi. Kebutuhan terbesar berada pada industri terigu. Permintaan produk mie dan roti sebagai makanan manusia, serta kebutuhan pakan ternak menjadi penyebabnya. Selain itu masyarakat Indonesia juga gemar sekali mengkonsumsi gorengan yang berbahan dasar terigu. Terigu dipilih karena rasanya yang gurih serta kemudahan untuk mendapatkan di warung-warung kecil.

Namun sayangnya gandum yang digunakan merupakan hasil impor. Gandum tersebut berasal dari antara lain dari Australia, Ukraina, Kanada, Amerika Serikat, Bulgaria, Moldova, Urugai, Rusia, dan lainnya. Tingkat impor gandum selalu meningkat. Asosiasi Tepung Terigu Indonesia (APTINDO) mengungkapkan bahwa pada tahun 2017 volume impor gandum mengalami kenaikan 9% dari tahun sebelumnya menjadi 11.48 juta ton. Nilainya juga meningkat 9.9% dari tahun sebelumnya menjadi US$2.65 miliar. "Indonesia sekarang sudah menjadi negara pengimpor gandum terbesar di dunia, melampaui Mesir," kata Dwi Andreas Santoso sebagai guru besar Fakultas Pertanian Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB) pada Maret 2018.

Pada kenyataannya, Indonesia memiliki sumber daya lain untuk menggantikan gandum sebagai bahan dasar terigu/ tepung. Kita memiliki singkong, ganyong, beras, pisang, garut, kacang hijau, kacang merah, kacang kedelai, dan berbagai macam bahan lainnya. Kemudian jika dikombinasikan dengan komposisi tertentu akan menghasilkan rasa dan tekstur yang mirip dengan tepung berbahan dasar gandum.

Sticky Friendship

The sticky rice is a type of seeds that looks like rice (which we used to be Indonesian main food/ rice). Physical appearance can usually be distinguished from its colour. Rice looks more transparent while sticky rice has a milky white colour. Sticky rice can live in Asia, including Indonesia. But Indonesian people prefer to plant rice because rice is still considered more basic than the sticky rice, although the price of sticky rice is higher than rice. In addition, sticky rice cultivation is also relatively more difficult.

Sticky rice can be processed into various products, especially food. Indonesia has various types of snacks made from sticky rice. The serving of sticky rice into a sweet food is often chosen by people in Java. For example onde-onde, lemper, klepon, cenil, wajik, and many more. Each region has its own name and characteristics in processing it.

Martani with HMPPI