NCERT Solutions Curiosity Chapter 3 Projects and further exploration — Learning further

Book page 58 & 59 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

Help your mother in unpacking the packets of various food items after shopping for grocery next time. Read the nutritional information of at least three fortified food items and analyse those.

Answer

Fortification means adding extra nutrients to a food during processing to improve its nutritional quality. Look for the words “fortified”, “+F” or the blue +F logo of FSSAI on the packet.

How to do the project: for each packet, note the item, the nutrient added, the amount per 100 g and the deficiency it fights.

Fortified item	Nutrient added	Why it is added
Iodised salt	Salts of iodine	Prevents goitre — the classic Indian example, from Case 2 of this chapter
Fortified aata	Iron, folic acid, Vitamin B₁₂	Fights anaemia, which is very common in India
Fortified milk / oil	Vitamin A and Vitamin D	Protects eyes and helps the body absorb calcium
Fortified rice (in ration shops)	Iron, folic acid, Vitamin B₁₂	Reaches families who eat rice as the main cereal

Sample analysis: The salt packet says “iodised salt, iodine not less than 15 ppm at the time of packing”. The aata packet says “fortified with iron 28 mg, folic acid 75 mcg per kg”. Both carry the FSSAI +F logo. So the same food that we anyway eat daily has been made to carry a nutrient that many people were missing — a clever and very cheap way of preventing deficiency diseases in a whole country.

Remember: packaged food items must have information about the nutrients on their cover, and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is the government agency that regulates food quality in India.

Q2.

The Apatani tribe of Arunachal Pradesh produces a salt called tapyo to fulfil their dietary requirements. Collect more information from the internet about their salt making process and the need to make their own salt. Collect pictures and paste them on a chart paper. Also, write a paragraph about the process of making this salt and its usefulness.

Answer

What to find out and put on your chart: where the Apatanis live (the Ziro valley of Arunachal Pradesh), what tapyo is, how it is made, why they had to make their own salt, and why it is rarely made today.

Sample paragraph: The Apatani people live in the Ziro valley of Arunachal Pradesh, high in the eastern Himalayas and very far from the sea. In earlier times sea salt could not reach these hills, so the community made its own salt, called tapyo. Certain local plants — a type of leafy plant, plantain and bamboo leaves — were dried and burnt, and the ash was collected. Water was poured slowly through the ash, and this water dissolved the salts out of it. The salty water was then boiled for hours until it thickened, and finally it was pressed into a hard grey cake, which is tapyo. It was used in the daily meal in place of common salt. Tapyo not only supplied salt but also minerals, and it was believed to be good for health. After ordinary iodised salt became available in the markets, the making of tapyo almost stopped, and today it is prepared mainly for festivals and to keep the tradition alive.

Why this is a science story, not only a culture story: the Apatanis solved a real deficiency problem with the material available around them, long before anyone spoke of minerals — just as the Agariyas of the Little Rann of Kutch get salt from seawater. Both are examples of communities getting a mineral that plants and animals could not supply.

Q3.

Vegetables or fruits that grow naturally in the forest or nearby fields without being cultivated by farmers are considered wild varieties. Traditionally, many tribal groups in India depend on these wild varieties, which form a part of their food. Read about ranbhajis from Maharashtra and edible mushrooms from Himachal Pradesh. Are you aware of any such wild varieties of food from your region? Discuss in class.

Answer

Ranbhaji (from ran = forest, bhaji = leafy vegetable) is the name given in Maharashtra to the leafy greens that come up on their own with the first monsoon rains — kurdu, takla, bharangi, shevga leaves, ambadi, kartoli. They are picked from field bunds and hillsides, cooked for a few weeks in the rainy season, and are rich in iron, calcium and vitamins.

Edible mushrooms of Himachal Pradesh — such as guchhi (morel), which grows wild in the forests of Kullu and Chamba — are collected after the snow melts, dried and used in festive dishes. Edible mushrooms are good sources of protein, and they grow mostly in dark and moist places.

Region	Wild food	How it is eaten
Maharashtra	Ranbhajis — kurdu, takla, kartoli	Cooked as sabzi in the monsoon
Himachal Pradesh	Guchhi and other edible mushrooms, lingdi fern	Dried, then cooked in curries
Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha	Koinar and munga leaves, mahua flowers, bamboo shoot, red-ant chutney	Saag, chutney, fermented drinks
North-East	Bamboo shoot, wild banana flower, fiddlehead fern	Eromba, curries and pickles
Rajasthan and Gujarat	Ker, sangri, kachri, gunda	Dried and cooked as ker-sangri

For your class discussion: ask elders which wild greens, fruits or mushrooms were eaten in your area, in which month they appear, and whether they are still collected. Write the local name first — that name is itself a piece of knowledge worth saving.

Important caution: never pick and eat a wild mushroom or berry on your own. Several poisonous kinds look exactly like the edible ones. Only someone who has learnt to identify them from experienced elders should collect them.

Q4.

List junk foods you eat frequently. Ask your friends also to make such lists. On the basis of these lists, write a letter to your principal requesting to ban certain junk foods inside the school campus. Suggest some healthy options.

Answer

Step 1 — the lists. Collect the lists from about 20 classmates and count how many named each item. Typical result: potato wafers (17), carbonated cold drinks (15), candy and toffee (14), instant noodles (11), packaged cakes and creamy biscuits (9), deep-fried samosa and burger (8).

Step 2 — the letter. Keep it short, polite and backed by your data.

Sample letter:

The Principal
[Name of School], [Place]

Subject: Request to restrict the sale of junk food on the school campus

Respected Sir/Madam,

We, the students of Class VI, carried out a small survey in our class as part of our Science chapter on food. Twenty students listed the snacks they eat most often. Potato wafers were named by 17 students, cold drinks by 15 and candy by 14. In our chapter we learnt that such foods have high calories because of high sugar and fat, but very little protein, vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre, and that eating them often can lead to obesity and other health problems.

We therefore request you kindly to stop the sale of potato wafers, carbonated drinks and candy in the school canteen and the shops just outside the gate. In their place, we suggest roasted chana, murmura, seasonal fruit, boiled corn, sprouts chaat, buttermilk, lemon water and jaggery-peanut chikki. These are cheap, easily available and much healthier.

We shall be grateful for your kind consideration.

Yours obediently,
[Your name], Class VI-[section], Roll No. [ ]
Date: [ ]

Why the survey makes the letter strong: a request based on numbers collected from real students is far harder to ignore than a general complaint. That is the difference between an opinion and evidence.

Q5.

Find out the variation in nutritional requirements of different individuals based on age, physical activity and health conditions. Record your observations. Discuss and analyse.

Answer

How to do it: pick six people of different ages and occupations in your family or locality. For each, note the age, the daily physical activity, any health condition, and roughly what and how much they eat in a day. Then compare.

Person	Activity level	What their diet needs most
Infant / small child	Growing very fast	Milk, protein, calcium, iron — small quantities, many times a day
School student (you)	Growing, plus play and study	Balanced diet with enough protein, calcium, iron and energy; breakfast is essential
Farmer or labourer	Very heavy physical work	Much more energy food, protein and plenty of water and salts lost as sweat
Office worker	Mostly sitting	Less energy food; more vegetables, fruit and fibre to avoid obesity
Pregnant or feeding mother	Supporting two bodies	Extra protein, iron, calcium, folic acid and fluids
Elderly person	Light activity; weaker bones and digestion	Calcium, Vitamin D, soft high-fibre food; less oil, salt and sugar
A person who is ill	Body repairing itself	Light, easily digested food, extra protein, vitamins and fluids

Analysis: the type of nutrients needed is the same for everyone — the difference is in the quantity and in which nutrient must be increased. Requirements vary with age, gender, physical activity, health status and lifestyle, exactly as the chapter says. That is why one fixed diet chart cannot suit a whole family.

Q6.

Prepare a diet chart to provide a balanced diet to a twelve-year-old child. The diet chart should include food items that are not expensive and are commonly available in your area.

Answer

A twelve-year-old is growing fast, so the chart must be strong in protein, calcium and iron, and it must contain roughage and water. Every item below is cheap and easily available in an Indian market.

Meal	Food items	Nutrients supplied
Early morning	A glass of water; soaked chana or 4–5 soaked groundnuts	Water, protein, iron
Breakfast	Poha or upma with vegetables and peanuts, or 2 rotis with sabzi; a glass of milk; a banana	Carbohydrate, protein, calcium, vitamins
Mid-morning (school break)	Seasonal fruit — guava, orange, papaya; a handful of roasted chana or murmura	Vitamin C, fibre, protein
Lunch	2–3 rotis (wheat or bajra) or rice; a bowl of dal or rajma; a green vegetable; curd; a raw salad of cucumber, tomato and onion	All nutrients together — a balanced plate
Evening	Buttermilk or lemon water; boiled corn, sprouts chaat or a jaggery-peanut chikki	Water, minerals, protein, iron
Dinner	Rice or roti; a vegetable such as lauki, palak or bhindi; dal or an egg; a little ghee	Carbohydrate, protein, vitamins, fat
Through the day	6–8 glasses of clean water	Absorption of nutrients and removal of waste

Rules I followed while making this chart:

A cereal + a pulse at every main meal, so protein is never missed.
Milk or curd daily for calcium.
One fruit and one raw salad daily for Vitamin C and roughage.
Green leafy vegetables at least twice a week for iron.
Only iodised salt, added after cooking.
No junk food in the daily chart — wafers and cold drinks stay an occasional treat.
Prefer locally grown, seasonal items — cheaper, fresher and lower in food miles.

Tip: Swap the items with what your own region grows — ragi malt in Karnataka, bajra roti in Rajasthan, sattu drink in Bihar, pakhala in Odisha. The nutrients stay the same; only the names change.

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