A whole array of new foods that are boiled, frozen, dried, washed, powdered and garden product of the original fruit, Disney Lunch Boxes, herb or medicinal concoction is simply flying off the shelves.

Dr Monica Gulati of the School of Applied Medical Sciences at Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar, says the trend has its benefits. Her university recently developed lozenges of joshanda, a mixture of seven herbs known for centuries to cure cough, and has applied for a patent. “Usually, joshanda is bought raw and boiled for half an hour, strained and cooled before drinking. It can be a hassle,” she says. The lozenge, she says, beats the syrup because it stays longer in the throat; it also appeals to a younger clientele. The university is also developing a powdered granular chyawanprash, to be mixed in milk or eaten by the crunchy tablespoonful—no more black, gooey paste.

Some of these packaged foods are reviving strict ayurvedic or unani principles—such as a pre-packaged khichri mix, which contains the right measures of rice and dal, with spices and medicinal herbs added. Others guarantee 100 per cent organic content.

From time to time, the fad for repackaged foods and farm products helps farmers get better prices or improve yield. The chilli, for instance, if harvested green, helps improve yield from farms, says Dr Jain. In Gujarat’s Mahuva region, a hub for processing onion and garlic, farmers sell 76,140 bags of onion a day through auctions to 60-odd processing units. A kilo of dry onion powder keeps for a year and a half, and, when mixed with water, makes as much onion paste as 10 kilos of the fresh vegetable.

So an entire shelf of health benefits can be bought at the supermarket. But the big advantage, says Bakshish Dean, corporate chef of Lite Bite Foods, a food-court business, is to the slowly changing Indian palate. “A home-cooked meal can now have vegetables and spices that don’t grow within a 1,000-mile radius,” he says. His only reservation is that people are buying pre-mixed khichri, for instance, because they’ve clearly forgotten what goes into the dish and how.

That said, there’s no denying that the new products combine ease-of-use with medical benefits. How good some of this stuff tastes is another matter, of course. Food consultant and columnist, says dried vegetables may replace fresh ones but “not in my lifetime”. “Nothing really can replace the real fresh vegetables,” he says—and he can’t think of any alternative that he uses for the real thing, except tried and tested freeze-dried potatoes or milk powder, which everyone knows can improve milkshakes and ice-cream.