Anuradha Sridharan

Keeping up with the habit of reviewing the year gone by, here's how my 2018 went.    I started off 2018 with a few intentions. I didn't want to label them as resolutions or goals as they sound too restrictive.  As always, I wanted to try a few things which I've never done before. 2018 was the year when I ran my first 5K and 10K runs - 5K millet awareness run in Jan and 10K Pinkathon run in Feb. I didn't do any special trainings for the marathon as the regular yoga practice kept me more agile. My Yoga teacher taught me to concentrate on my breathing during the run and also a few stretches to do before and after the run. These helped tremendously and I completed both the runs without much tiredness or exhaustion and was able to recover quickly. Though I enjoyed the runs, I'm not planning to register for them anymore. Yes, it gives a sense of accomplishment but looking at the tangible (registration fees, petrol expenses to drive to and from the far-off marat...

A few days back, there was a contest hosted in Instagram where many food bloggers were creating "innovative" and "healthy" recipes using Parle biscuits - halwa, burfi, laddoos etc. Why would we want to mess with traditional recipes, I wondered. Most of the biscuits shown in the contest photos were from the newly launched Nutricrunch brand.  I started reading up about this brand to understand how it is being positioned. Quoting from LiveMint article , The company’s new brand is focused more on consumers who consciously opt for healthy offerings, rather than those who choose health once in a while because of price-based promotions. Nutricrunch’s range will include products such as digestive cookies, low-sugar cream crackers, digestive Marie biscuits, etc. Some variants will include indigenous ingredients such as jowar. The range will also include products that target lifestyle issues such as weight management, sugar and cholesterol management and nutrient...

Come Oct every year, we keep hearing about the smog in Delhi. The reasons quoted in the media were mostly focused on stubble burning and/or Diwali crackers. I wanted to understand the underlying reasons behind stubble burning and the other reasons behind rising air pollution, not just in Delhi but also in other parts of the country. This year, both my husband and I were hit with allergy related cold and cough often. The frequency of such issues were higher, compared to the previous years. And the recovery took more time than the usual viral infections. Dust, mites, traffic, smoke etc were the reasons given for these allergies. Similar to the way I tried to understand about food and nutrition over the past 5-6 years, I have been wanting to understand in depth about what goes in the air we breathe and water we drink.  This book " The Great Smog of India " couldn't have come at a better time. The author has taken ample effort in demystifying air pollution and t...

You might have heard of the familiar 5Rs related to waste management and sustainability - Reflect, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking of a similar framework that is so relevant to healthy eating habits as well. Having been reading about food and nutrition for many years now, I have come to believe that both from a quality and a quantity standpoint, our eating habits have become poor. Because of the poor quality ingredients being used in processed foods, the frequent eating-outs, take-aways, the pesticides and chemical fertilizers being used in our fresh produce, the quality of foods we put in our mouths have deteriorated over time.  The other important but overlooked aspect is the Quantity. It is shocking to note how we keep munching something or the other throughout the day, mindlessly in front of our screens. There is hardly any gap between meal times. More than the main meals, we tend to snack a LOT. These may not b...

Many of us presume that digestive biscuits are healthy and can be eaten guilt-free. I had earlier written about the popular McVities digestive biscuits and how it tags to an existing habit of eating biscuits with tea/coffee (Do check it out if you haven't) A few days back, I spotted a new variety of Brittania Nutrichoice digestive biscuits at a supermarket with a tag "zero" - zero sugar and zero maida. Needless to say, I was intrigued and started reading through the ingredients. On googling, I realized that this brand was launched a couple of years back. Ingredients : Whole Wheat Flour (61%), Edible vegetable oil (palm), Maltitol (965), Wheat bran (5%), Raising agents (503(ii), 500(ii)) Maltodextrin Milk Solids Iodised Salt Emulsifiers (322, 471, 472e) Malt extract Sweetener (955) Dough Conditioner (223) Spice (Nutmeg) For people who repeatedly ask me why I call out wheat flour as maida, please check the first ingredient here. I...

  I wasn't planning to write a separate post on Soulfull ragi choco fills as I had earlier touched upon its ingredients in my post on Kelloggs Chocos . However, having seen how it is being promoted by mommy instagrammers, I decided that this product needs to be reviewed separately. It is all so cute and fun to see heart-warming pictures of mommy and kids in a lake side picnic. But carrying a picnic basket with small packs of Soulfull ragi choco fills is the heights of fake promotion (If you don't understand the context, check out these pics ) It is being promoted aggressively as a "healthy" breakfast cereal and a "healthy" anytime snack for young kids.  The brand and its digital aLLakkais (insta supporters) are pushing the product using the key ingredient "ragi". Yes, the ingredients list shows ragi as the first ingredient with 50%. What about the second ingredient - Sugar? Why isn't any of these mommies talking about the ...

Corn flakes, chocos, muesli and now the latest entrant, granola. Kelloggs continues to make strides into the growing breakfast cereal market in India. I had earlier written about how the breakfast cereal market growth in India can be attributed to changing consumer preferences, exposure, convenience and availability. Such breakfast cereal brands might be taking a good share from the urban consumer's wallet every week/month, but definitely not from my household. I don't have any kind of breakfast cereal stocked up in my pantry. It is such a waste of money and it does no good to our health, though the brands continue to scream otherwise. I just wrapped up my breakfast with ragi dosas (with homemade batter) and tomato thokku. With the batter and thokku prepared ahead, all it took me was less than 5 minutes to make the 2 dosas. Let's look at this new product - Kelloggs granola with almonds and cranberries. The front side of the pack says "Wholesome crunc...

An alarming trend I'm observing these days -  Person A completes a basic nutrition course in Coursera and calls herself a certified nutritionist from Stanford.  Person B goes for a one-month Ayurveda course in Kerala and claims as an Ayurveda expert, giving talks and workshops on Ayurveda.  Person C loses weight by following Keto diet and then calls herself a Keto expert and offers weight loss packages for a hefty fee (35K-50K for 3 months).  Nutrition and fitness are the hot topics in the past 5-6 years, given the prevalence of many lifestyle diseases. Many people are desperate to lose weight and fall for such bogus experts. There's no regulation whatsoever. I'm perfectly okay with sharing knowledge and perspectives, but I'm concerned when people turn their half-baked knowledge into a business. I have been posting pictures of my simple, healthy meals on Instagram over the past couple of years. A few of my followers have asked me if I can help them w...

    I stumbled upon yet another "healthy" variation of Maggi nutri-licious noodles in the supermarket a few days back. I had earlier written about atta noodles and oats noodles and why they aren't healthy as the brand claims. Do check it out if you haven't. This new variation is called Maggi nutri-licious baked noodles with sweet corn . The target audience is clearly children looking at the image and the nutrition values are based on the RDA of a 8-year old child. This is the first time I'm seeing the nutrition facts based on a child's requirement. Though I'm happy about this change, the sodium % makes me question if the RDA values are correct. (1) High Sodium In a serving size of 60gm of baked noodles, the sodium quantity is 599.6mg . Do you see the Bata pricing tactic being employed here - 599.6mg? Why not call it out as 600mg? The guideline daily amount % shown is 30%. If 600mg of sodium is 30%, then it implies that an average 8...

Mental Health Awareness Day is observed every year on Oct 10th. I had earlier posted an article related to mental health around this time of the year, as it is such an important topic that needs to be discussed. Many times, we wonder why life throws so many challenges to us, while the rest of the world (friends, relatives, social circle etc) seems to be having so much fun and enjoying their life.  Firstly, we cannot and should not judge someone's life based on what they share on social media. We like to share our life's best moments, while we sulk alone or with close family members during our worst moments. So let's consciously put an effort not to be affected by social media. I'm active on social media mainly for inspiration, to get ideas and to learn about interesting stuff. Lately I have been quite active on Instagram. I get inspiration from many foodies who share similar passion towards healthy eating and cooking like me. There are also a lot of peo...

Image Source: https://fssai.gov.in/EatRightMovement/back.jsp    Recently, I came across this FSSAI page that talks about decoding back of the pack. The explanation is at a very high level and doesn't include any useful details whatsoever, that will help the consumer understand the ingredients and make a purchase decision. My guess is that they don't want consumers to dive into any further details.   This post below is a summary of how to read and interpret food labels. This post is intended for those who have never read food labels before and would like some pointers to get started. Readers who have read my previous posts can skim through or treat this post as a revision :-) Whenever you pick a packaged food from a shop/supermarket, the first thing you do is ignore all the attractive images and taglines in the front of the pack. Simply flip over and turn to the back of the pack.     Firstly, check the manufacturing date and expiry date...

Last week, we celebrated D's birthday and hosted a small party for a group of her friends (aged 3-8 years). As always, I stuck to my no-junk-food rule. I had taken the help of a friend who cooks amazing North Indian food to prepare snacks for the birthday party.  She gave me a wide variety of options and I selected Pooris and aloo gravy Veg cutlet Dahi bhalla Ofcourse, birthday cake was also there! What's the one food that unites all urban kids? The answer is pizza. It is the default item in all birthday parties. I so wanted to change that. Why can't it be pooris or dahi vadas? Or for that matter any other Indian food? Why are our kids crazy about pizza, noodles and pasta? I tried to see if an Indian snack menu like the above would appeal to young kids of this generation. Although the food was yummy and tasty (adults devoured it), the kids hardly ate anything. Except for the cake and lemonade, they just nibbled a few bites of poori. Wrong judgment...