Vet varsity set to hold food festival

Tribune News Service

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Ludhiana, December 12

Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU) is going to organise a food festival on December 15 at the College of Fisheries. It will organise the event with a theme “Shelf Stable Value Added Products for Health & Food Security” to popularise various value added meat, fish and milk products developed by the university.

Giving details about the food festival, Dr VK Taneja, Vice-Chancellor of the university, said animal protein plays an important role in human nutrition. Keeping in view its short shelf life in unprocessed form and increasing demand for ready to eat and ready to cook value added products, there is a need to make it available in processed form with an extended shelf life and high nutritive value for additional food security.

He said these products are more health oriented, attract more customers and hence fetch higher market price and additional income.

GADVASU has developed a number of value added products from milk, fish, chicken, goat and emu meat. All three colleges of the university - College of Veterinary Sciences, College of Dairy Science and Technology and College of Fisheries - will display different value added products developed from meat, milk and fish, which will also be available for sale, said Dr Taneja.

The Department of Livestock Products Technology of College of Veterinary Science has developed various health-oriented meat products such as low fat/low calorie meat patties, fibre enriched meat nuggets and sausages, Omega-3 fatty acid enriched meat patties and balls, bioactive compound enriched meat patties, restructured meat loaves and low-salt meat products.

Fish is also a rich source of long chain Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which makes it the most sought after animal health food, especially among growing children, expecting mothers, elderly people, heart/hypertension patients, etc. A variety of spineless value added products such as fish balls, fish nuggets, fish fingers, fish cutlet and fish curry have been developed from deboned carp meat by the College of Fisheries.

The College of Dairy Science and Technology has introduced array of mouth-watering and healthy new dairy products such as kesar badam milk, spiced processed cheese food, low calorie milk cake and low fat yog ice cream. Kesar badam milk is a rich and energetic drink, which combines the goodness of milk and health benefits of almonds and kesar. Regular value added dairy products such as fibre enriched dodha burfi, probiotic lassi, flavoured yoghurt, carrot lassi, whey drinks, mozzarella cheese, masala paneer, peda, masala lassi and mango lassi will also be displayed.

Pinni-making machine, designed and developed by the College of Dairy Science and Technology, will be an eye-catching attraction at the festival.