Anuradha Sridharan

I always come up with a bunch of blog ideas after a Chennai trip. The reasons are many -  1) I get to watch TV (and the ads)  2) I get to read newspaper  3) I get valuable advice from family elders, who blindly believe whatever junk food brands claim - high calcium / high protein / high fibre and what not. During the long weekend trip, I stumbled upon this ad of " Dr.Oetker's FunFoods Smokey Pineapple dressing ". What grabbed my attention was, you guessed it right, "zero fat". If the brand just says "high taste, taste mein hero, super yum" and similar such phrases, my brain would selectively ignore it but the moment the health buzz words are thrown in, I become alert and watch the ad with interest. Let's clarify a basic formula. Packaged foods are made addictive due to 3 elements - sugar, salt and oil. If you remove one of the 3 elements, then the brands compensate it by increasing the other 2. Yes, there are other artificia...

Last evening, I finally made time to visit the organic store "Restore" in Kottivaakkam, Chennai. It was such a beautiful sight to see organic dry groceries (traditional rice varieties, millets and pulses) stocked up in huge tins. There were also many kinds of cold-pressed oils. Customers are supposed to bring their own containers and pick up the required stuff. It brought back memories of my childhood where we used to visit a "Chettiyaar Kadai" every month for groceries. The annas would pack the groceries in newspapers and we would pick up chekku oils in oil cans. No plastic packaging whatsoever. I didn't go to Restore with the intention of buying any groceries and so didn't carry any containers. I just bought a couple of items that were packed in plastic bags along with a few books. As we were driving back home, my mind started to wander, "Wish I had a similar store in Bangalore. Oh wait, if it is not there, why can't I start something with ...