Keeping it real

Organic foods are on show at the Organic Day Carnival held in Hong Kong. [Photo by Wang Yuke/China Daily]

The time when villagers jostled for rations and desperately grabbed anything edible to fill their stomachs is gone. Today, more and more people are instead jumping on the organic food bandwagon, bound for a pesticide-free and nutrient-packed dietary utopia.

Organic food is seen as synonymous with health. Despite the steep price tag, many people are willing to spend money on organic commodities, to soothe their anxiety about food security.

At the Organic Day Carnival held in March in Hong Kong's Central, the venue was full of organic food exhibition booths. Ecstatic visitors besieged the booth's hosts, grilling them about the organic items for sale.

Drinking bread sounds counterintuitive; but it is real. Bread Drink, a groundbreaking line from a German food company, was selling like hotcakes.

The whole-grain used to produce the bread is handpicked certified organic grain. The cooked bread spends six to eight months' in fermentation in clear well water.

Popular fruit and vegetable diet drinks are also making inroads into the organic market.

"We are happy to hear our customers reporting that health benefits really kick in after consuming our vegetable and fruit mix," says the booth supervisor of Melilea Organic. "They said their constipation was visibly relieved and they shed some weight."

Designed as a meal replacement, the instant organic drink was marketed as not only nutrient-packed but also able to ease hunger pangs.

Melilea's soya drink targets arthritis sufferers and vegetarians.

It minimizes purine content by picking beans' sprouts and weeding out the residue.