Srinagar, May 12 -- By Dr. Waseem Ahmad

Kashmir once understood food as medicine long before nutrition science entered medical journals.

A traditional Kashmiri kitchen built health through habit, season, and memory. Families cooked haakh fresh from nearby fields, dried vegetables for winter months, fermented pickles in clay jars, and simmered pulses over slow fires that filled homes with warmth.

Those meals emerged from physical labour, local soil, and practical knowledge passed through generations.

That system sustained metabolic health in a harsh climate that demanded stamina and endurance. Villages depended on foods that strengthened the body through winter and supported long days in orchards, paddy fields, and mountain terrain.

K...