Malabar Crusader Wants India To Taste Real Cinnamon

Malabar Crusader Wants India To Taste Real Cinnamon

For all who use cinnamon in their kitchen, this should be of interest to you. Before buying any simple, break off a sample of the bark and taste it. Buy it only if it tastes like cinnamon.

CHENNAI: Nearly 500 years after the Portuguese and Dutch fought for control of cinnamon trade in Sri Lanka - then Ceylon - a lone crusader in Kerala's Malabar region is fighting a battle that he believes is in the best interests of the nation's health, and will reclaim pride for the spice.

Leonard John, a cinnamon planter from Kannur, is striving to make his countrymen distinguish between cinnamon and its look-alike, cassia, arguing that ignorance to differentiate the two may not only make you the loser at the retail outlet, but cause potentially serious health issues.

"It's a rip-off on consumers that is happening across the country as retail outlets are selling cassia disguised as cinnamon. Cassia costs about Rs 35 per kg and cinnamon costs roughly Rs 250. Consumers are largely ignorant and they are put at health risk by consuming cassia", says John, who carries on undeterred even after a death threat, apparently by importers of cheap cassia who pass it off as cinnamon.

Rampant substitution of cassia for cinnamon began after western nations banned cassia. Until then, cassia and cinnamon commanded near-equal prices, but following the ban, cassia prices plummeted almost 90%. John says importers pounced on the opportunity to sell cassia disguised as cinnamon, leaving little demand for real cinnamon. Cassia imports are mostly from China and Indonesia.

John has petitioned officialdom from the Rashtrapathi Bhavan to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, the United Planters' Association of Southern India to the Director General of Foreign Trade, and the Central Vigilance Commission to the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence. Not to much avail, thus far.

The crusade has been treacherous for John financially and physically. John has fought the lure to chop off his cinnamon plants like many of his peers have done to get into the more lucrative rubber plantation sector. And the death threat he received for his efforts to get real cinnamon on Indian plates, means there are police cases registered in Kannur, Kozhikode and Thrissur districts.