The first wealth in life is health. To remain healthy, we need to eat healthy and soy is the key ingredient that plays a vital role in maintaining the nutrition level in our body. Over time, with its nutritional benefits, soy has emerged as a powerhouse of nutrition and transformed many lives, not just in developed cities, but also in remote rural areas.

For Kala Bai, a 43-year-old woman farmer residing in the remote village of Khari in Sehore district Madhya Pradesh, India, soy has been a boon for her family. We are Soy farmers, but we never knew that consumption of soy is so nutritious for our body. We just produced the crop and sold it in the market, without even knowing the real value of soy, until we were introduced to Solidaridad.

Weakness, frequent fever and dizziness were very common in Kala Bai s family. Under the Nutrition Program of the Good Food Good Farming initiative of Solidaridad, Kala Bai was told about the benefits of eating soy and the process of consuming it.

We provided our family with good food but we missed on providing food with nutritional value. We started consuming soy about six months ago and incorporated it into our daily food consumption and it has helped us move back to a healthy life, Kala Bai said.

Fighting Pain - How Soy and Drumsticks benefitted Kala Bai's family?

Kala Bai s husband, Man Singh Mevada, suffered from acute knee pain for years. The family visited many doctors and spent thousands on heavy medications, but in vain.

I am a farmer and have a laborious job. My knee pain refrained me from even carrying out my routine activities. I could not sit or stand without support. One of the doctors even suggested that we operate on my knees to reduce the pain, but we did not want an operation.

Worried, Kala Bai sought every option to get her husband out of pain, but none really worked. On the advice of Good Farming-Good Food nutrition workers, she learnt about the benefits of naturopathy and the importance of consuming a healthy diet. I was advised to use leaves of drumstick trees while preparing Dal or parathas. They explained to us in detail the process of using soy and drumstick leaves and within a few months, the results were positive. My husband now has a lot of relief in pain, she adds.

Kala Bal's entire family, including her one-year-old granddaughter, consume soy and other delicacies with more nutritional value and also encourage people from other households from their villages to do so.

Good Health Good Income

Nutrition team initially conducted a meeting in their village and made them understand the nutritional value of soy. The workers also conducted culinary activities and training and taught women to teach them the proper processing of soy and various recipes that can be made from soy

The field workers associated with Good Farming- Good Food taught Kala Bal's family different recipes of soy and drumstick leaves. Nutrition workers taught us to prepare soy laddu, soy nuts, etc. which is healthy and tasty. Since we have learnt the process of consuming soy and preparing various delicacies from it, we have also started accepting orders for the same. Since we got our health back, we are able to increase our wealth as well.- Kala Bai said.