Nuts about milk? Soon,you can have a glassful made from peanuts

Notably,India produces around 6-7 million tonnes of groundnut every year. But,consumption is limited either to production of oil or directly as peanuts.

With natural milk of cow and buffalo getting expensive,groundnut with useful vitamins and other health benefits could emerge as highly acceptable alternative.

Groundnut contains about 25 per cent good quality protein,40 per cent oil rich in essential fatty acids,3 per cent fibre and 2.5 per cent minerals.

“Groundnut is also the richest source of niacin,” said Senior Scientist Dr DN Yadav,“this is free from lactose and cholesterol”.

“Similarly,it contains Vitamin B 6 and phytochemicals. These act as anti-cancer and anti-cholesterol agents,” said Dr Yadav revealing the health benefits of groundnut based products.

On the scope of establishing business,Dr Yadav said that market acceptability of these products would be high as they were able to reduce the nutty flavor to a large extent.

“Also,we have consumed groundnut directly for ages and have already developed a taste for the same,” he added. “With investment of Rs 5 lakh to 6 lakh,equipment for production of groundnut milk could be set up. The amount of value addition would be very high. We have estimated that 200 litres of production of milk from groundnut per day could fetch an income of around Rs 50,000 to 60,000 per month to an entrepreneur,” he claimed,adding that they have also developed very good cheese from groundnut.

Bareilly-based entrepreneur Chandra Pal Jain,who got the technology,said that he saw no reason for not getting market for the CIPHET developed groundnut milk based products.

“In California,groundnut milk is already very popular and imported butter from groundnut has also hit shelves of the Indian market,” he said,adding that groundnut milk could turn out to be the best alternative for cow/buffalo milk,which is failing to meet the ever growing demand of increasing population.

Dr SK Nanda,Project Coordinator,hoped that groundnut milk based products would soon be available for the Indian customers.