Anuradha Sridharan

    One more packaged food review recommended by a friend. It is also the best time to look at such products, given that it is monsoon season and we crave for something deep-fried. I remember a few months back that such packets of frozen to-be-deepfried snacks would be in one corner of the freezer shelf in the supermarket that I frequent often. But I recently noticed that they have taken up almost the entire freezer space with so many varieties - global favourites like French Fries, Potato wedges, potato smileys etc and local ones like aloo tikkis. Clearly, the “ freezer se seedha kadai mein ” promotions have worked big time. I have never made them at home or eaten them anywhere else, so I’m not aware of the taste. Let’s look at the ingredients list of the popular “ McCain Super Wedges ”. Potato (83.5%) Palmolein oil Batter (wheat flour, corn flour, edible common salt, thickener (INS 1422, INS 412), Spices and Parsley (0.05%)] Palmolein oil: A...

 Couple of months back, I wrote about the grand launch of Saffola Aura oil with the buzz created in Instagram through popular food bloggers and I wished someone would launch native, cold-pressed oils in a similar fashion. For those of you who haven’t read the post , please check it out. I recently started using cold-pressed oils (Standard Cold Pressed Oils brand) and I wrote my honest, unsolicited review in Instagram yesterday. If you read my review, you’ll find that it’s not all goody-goody and I have also highlighted the price difference. This morning, I was surprised to receive a call from one of the founders of Standard Cold Pressed oils. He genuinely thanked me for sharing my feedback and also mentioned that they are trying hard to bring down the price of cold-pressed groundnut oil. His heart-felt thanks had a powerful, emotional factor to it and I could feel he was super-thrilled to receive feedback. Compare that to the lakhs big brands pay food bloggers (who alre...

Image Source: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Refined-White-Cane-Icumsa-45-Sugar_50034672888.html This quest towards unraveling packaged foods, their ingredients and their nutrition profile has led me to several interesting discussions among friends, family and well-wishers from social media. One such question posed by my husband is this -  “ How much sugar is okay to consume in a day? You write about how a serving of Chocos has 2.5 tsp of sugar, that doesn’t seem a lot, isn’t it? ”.  Good question…To answer this, I started reading up on the prescribed guidelines for sugar both in India and in the US. Before I share the numbers, let’s keep in mind, there are natural sugars found in fruits, vegetables, milk and grains.  The guidelines below are applicable for “ added sugar ” - amount of added sugar considered acceptable for a healthy diet. India’s National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) guidelines: Source: http://ninindia.org/dietaryguidelinesfo...

Honestly, I hadn’t researched much about this probiotic/prebiotic craze until a couple of friends pointed out that Kefir and Kombucha are rising in popularity. Let’s begin with a teeny tiny summary before we talk about Yakult. Probiotics are good bacteria that keeps your digestive system healthy by controlling growth of harmful bacteria. They help the intestines break down food. They boost our immunity, lowers the risk of colon cancer and increases the effectiveness of vitamins. Prebiotics are food for probiotics. They are made up of carbohydrates that your body can’t digest. They reach the large intestine without getting affected by the digestion process. Prebiotics such as fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and galacto‐oligosaccharides (GOS) are naturally found in many foods such as whole wheat, onion, garlic, cabbage, legumes etc. Now, let’s talk about probiotics in more detail: Probiotics bacteria belong to the two families of bacteria: Strains of   Lac...