Varakh the Silver foil used on Sweets:
The silver foils are not very expensive. They are sold by weight.
Ordinarily, you can buy a packet of 160 foils for a price between Rs.100 to
200. That is, approximately one rupee per foil. Not only the sweets, now a
days it is also applied on fruits. Some Ayurvedic medicines also are wrapped
in silver foils.
They are made by hammering thin sheets of silver in middle of booklets made
of a bull's intestines. In other words, after slaughtering a bull, quickly
his intestines are removed, and sold to the manufacturers of foils. The
skins made of old intestines are of no use. Even one-day-old intestines can
not be used, because within a few hours they stiffen.
After that the foil manufacturer sell the bundle of foils to the sweets manufacturers.
Some small foil manufacturers sell the foils to the temples.
This foil is not only dirty, it also is non-vegetarian. Even the meat-eaters
do not eat intestines. Use of these foils turn even sweets into
non-vegetarian food. A few years ago the Indian Airlines learned about this,
and since then stopped using them on the sweets served in their planes.
Source of Silver Foil in Sweets
This aspect is brought out in the magazine "Beauty without cruelty" and the
Television show of Maneka Gandhi, "Heads and Tails". In India, on an average
an estimate indicates that 2,75,000 kilos of "VARAKH" is consumed. Can you
estimate how many cattle/ox are sacrificed for just a bit of taste? If you
are surprised as I am, after reading this article please inform as many as
possible so as to ensure that we unknowingly don't consume beef.
Pan
By now, a pan-lover vegetarian person may have eaten equivalent of many
miles of oxen intestines! For them, here is an another bad news - the Chuna
that they apply on pan, also is not vegetarian! That is made from the shells
of living insects. These insects are taken from the ocean, killed, and
removed from the shell. Then the shells are softened in water, dried, and
ground into white powder. When you put this Chuna in your mouth, you are
participating in killing of many insects. This is no different from taking
life of a goat or a pig. Everyone wants to live, no one likes the pain of
death.
Indian Sweets and Varakh
Silver foil, or varakh, as it is generally known in India, adds glitter to
Indian sweets, betel nut (Supari), Paan (betel-leaf) , and fruits. It is also
used in Ayurvedic medicines. The silver-topped sweet is even served as
prashad in many temples and on auspicious and religious occasions. Varakh is
also used in flavoured syrups as in Kesar (saffron) syrup.
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