Anuradha Sridharan

One of my Insta followers had DMed me to share my thoughts on the new Cadbury Dairy Milk with 30% less sugar.  My criteria for picking products is quite simple - any brand that uses health-related claims in their promotions. That's the reason why you wouldn't have seen many reviews of typical chocolates or candies in my blog. In my 20s, Dairy Milk used to be one of my favorite chocolates. I was never a big chocolate fan but whenever I wanted to eat a piece of chocolate, I used to choose Dairy Milk - the regular one (not the kozha kozha silk version).  Dairy Milk wasn't on my radar of packaged food reviews, but this DM from a reader along with this media article with the attractive headline " Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate gets a healthier version with 30% less sugar " coaxed me to check out its ingredients. From a brand perspective, quoting from this LiveMint article , The company is betting that indulgence-seeking consumers who are also he...

This post has been lying in the draft mode for a year now. Finally, I made the time to complete it, along with a personal reflection. Two incidents triggered me to work on this topic. (1) Last July, I was delivering a talk on child nutrition to a group of young mothers. While discussing the topic of including more vegetables, I mentioned about the sheer variety of the native, local veggies available in India and how we could easily rotate the intake of vegetables once every 15-20 days. A couple of moms wondered if that is even possible. One of them told me that she usually ends up cooking the usual carrots, beans and potatoes. (2) D seems to have taken a fascination towards buffet restaurants. Two of our family's favorite buffet places in Bangalore are Chutney Chang and Mango Greens (JP Nagar). Whenever we go to such buffet places, D knows exactly what she wants - pasta. She would have 2 servings of pasta, a bowl of cucumber/carrot slices and then head onto dessert...

If I had answered this question a couple of years back, I would have said, "Yes, absolutely....breakfast is the important meal of the day". But now my answer is different - " All meals eaten AFTER you have felt hungry are important meals of the day ". I'm not relying on scientific research to back up my answer but more to do with my personal experience.  I have observed that on some mornings, I feel hungry enough to eat a solid breakfast. For eg, after an intense yoga practice today, I was quite hungry and so I grabbed a plate of dosais with dry coconut podi. A couple of days back, although my yoga practice was intense, I didn't feel hungry to eat and so grabbed a glass of vegan banana smoothie. By noon, I was hungry and ate a wholesome, homemade lunch.  I'm slowly shifting my dinner timings to 7PM and so I fast for around 12 hours. I feel light and refreshed in the mornings. I'm no longer eating 3-4 meals based on set timings.  I'...

Based on FSSAI's draft notification, I had earlier analyzed the sugar levels in various, popular packaged foods . If you haven't seen it, do check it out. This post is all about sodium. As much as we give attention to sugar levels in packaged foods, we need to look for sodium quantities too. According to WHO's report on " sodium intake for adults and children ", Elevated sodium intake has been associated with a number of NCDs (including hypertension, cardiovascular disease and stroke), and decreasing sodium intake may reduce blood pressure and the risk of associated NCDs Higher sodium intake was associated with higher risk of incident stroke, fatal stroke and fatal coronary heart disease. WHO recommends a reduction to <2 g/day sodium (5 g/day salt) in adults (strong recommendation). The recommended maximum level of intake of 2 g/day sodium in adults should be adjusted downward based on the energy requirements of children relative to those of adults. From my ...

There will be some lines in a book that will leave you with a lasting impression even after you have finished reading it. As I was reading " Atomic Habits ", this particular line made that impact on me. Peace occurs when you don’t turn your observations into problems. You notice a cue, a bit of information, an event. If you do not desire to act on what you observe, then you are at peace. Many times, we set goals or worry about certain issues based on what we read, what we see, what we hear, etc. For eg, " walk 10000 steps a day " has become one of the popular goals related to fitness. We read about it in news articles, see the step counter updates from our friends on social media and come across deals on pedometers. Firstly, it is important for us to think whether this is a goal worth aiming for. Is this a mere observation or do we want to embrace it as a problem to solve? Being physically active throughout the day is very important but does "wal...

  This book has been on my wishlist for quite some time. I finally got hold of a copy thanks to a nice Kindle deal (currently it is even better - Rs.149. Grab it before it goes away). What a fascinating read it was! The author has broken down in detail the habit formation process with so many interesting case studies. He defines a habit as " a routine or behavior that is performed regularly—and, in many cases, automatically. " In the first chapter, he sets the context on the importance and role of daily habits in our life. The quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits. Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. The section on why one should focus on systems/processes (that translate to habits) rather than end-goals was thought-provoking. Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.  Goals are good for setting a direc...

Continuing from my earlier post , I wanted to share a couple of changes I made with respect to my digital minimalism journey. I took a break from Instagram for the first 10 days of July. During this break, I contemplated about numerous ways of how to consciously use this app without accessing it at the slightest hint of boredom or be available throughout the day. I finally decided to have a dedicated time slot of 30 minutes in a day where I would install the app, share a few posts in feed/stories, respond to comments/DMs, check my timeline and uninstall the app. I usually would like to sit down and relax for 30 minutes post-lunch and so 1:30-2PM felt like a perfect time for Instagram use. For the past 9 days, I'm following this practice and it feels so much better. Instead of responding to DMs and comments as and when they come, I batch process them in the 30 min slot and this saves me a ton of time. Instead of posting a picture as soon as I take, I gather them throughout th...

This is a question I often get - " How much of sugar is bad? " As I had written in an earlier post , the limit for maximum added sugar is around 5-6 tsp per day. Unless someone gets into the habit of reading nutrition labels diligently, it is hard to figure out whether this limit is exceeded in a day, given that there are numerous packaged foods loaded with sugar that have pervaded our daily meals. Given this situation, I find the guideline prescribed by FSSAI in the draft notification to be a valid benchmark that we can all refer to. The energy (kcal) from added sugars should not exceed 10% of the total energy provided by the packaged food. When a packaged food brand exceeds this threshold, then the brand should highlight the sugar value in RED in front of the pack. This is currently at the draft stage. IF and WHEN this gets approved, brands would still have 3 years to get this implemented. Is it worth waiting that long, when our health is at s...

Habit formation is a topic that I'm extremely fascinated about. I devour books and essays on this topic, as the concepts branch out across a wide variety of fields such as psychology, behavior, motivation, economics, decision making, sociology, anthropology, evolution etc.  Our brains like to run on autopilot and that's one of the primary reasons that we should be conscious of our habits, both conscious and unconscious ones. James Clear in his book "Atomic Habits" states "Habits reduce cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so you can allocate your attention to other tasks" Habits impact our lives in many ways - be it our health, relationships, time management, sleep and even how we respond to our emotions. There are some fantastic books on this subject. I'm almost winding up Atomic Habits. Charles Duhigg's The power of habit is another insightful read. From a technology perspective, Nir Eyal's Hooked is another ...

Thanks to yet another sponsored ad, I came across this brand of cooking oil. The product name has all the right words to capture our attention - nature, fresh, heart etc. I looked into their ads on youtube . Such fear-inducing messaging and story plot being used! The background music and the voices are so depressing.  So what exactly does this heart-friendly(?) cooking oil made of? It is a blended oil comprising of refined rice bran oil (50% by weight) refined rapeseed low erucic acid (canola) oil (50% by weight) Refined oils are one of the key contributors to inflammation in the body. It is ironic that this refined blended oil brand talks about inflammation and how it affects our heart in their ads. Canola oil is relatively new in India and is being pitched as heart-friendly oil. Where exactly this canola oil comes from? Canola oil is first and foremost, a genetically modified product. According to this source ,  Rapeseed oil...

  The diet terms such as "vegan", "gluten free", "low carb" etc are being used liberally by food brands - be it the product name, FoP labels, advertisements, influencer marketing collateral etc. One such brand is this newly launched "gluten free" flour by Aashirvaad at a whopping price of Rs.190 per kg.   Before we jump in and buy products labelled as "gluten free", it is important to check out the ingredients list. Source: Screenshot taken from Amazon.in (https://www.amazon.in/Aashirvaad-Natures-Super-Foods-Gluten/dp/B07MDVWHRQ/ ) on 11th Jul 2019 12:30PM IST This pack of Aashirvaad's gluten free flour is made with Jowar flour Flaked rice flour Starch Ragi flour Dehydrated potato Milk Solids Thickener (INS 415) Psyllium Husk powder Emulsifier (INS 471) Iodised salt Yes, all the ingredients are gluten free but I don't see the need for many of them here. For eg, what do they mean ...

The much-awaited document is finally here. I went through the English version (starting Page 40) in detail. Glad to read through many of these proposed regulations but my only concern is the timing - WHEN will these be enforced. And also hoping that packaged foods industry leaders don't intervene and "adjust" the thresholds defined as per their convenience. The part that I'm most interested in is the FRONT label highlighting the nutrition values of added sugar, sodium, saturated fats and trans-fats and the thresholds for color coding high values in RED. Source: FSSAI Food Safety and Standards (Labeling and Display) Draft Notification   Though the threshold values seem tight enough, brands are given three years to MARK them as RED in a phased manner if they exceed the thresholds specified For current year after these regulations come into force - only labeling in the front of the pack, NO color coding After the 1st year, threshold values + 30% of thre...

As I said in an earlier post , digital minimalism is an important focus area for me this year. Today, let me share how my progress has been so far and what I'm planning for July.  April this year was a more productive month for me. After reading " Digital minimalism ", I had cut down my phone usage to an hour per day. Also thanks to Internet downtime for over a week in April, I was able to read quite a few books and did other offline activities that I enjoy. Then in May, I traveled to Chennai and I was there for 10 days. Feeling quite bored, I returned to my old ways. Phone usage went back to 2-3 hours a day. The same continued after I returned home.  In June, after the school reopened for my daughter, I had set a few daily habits for myself and tracked them diligently in my journal. One such daily habit was " No phone use after 8:30PM ". After finishing dinner and winding up my kitchen work, I check my phone one last time around 8:30PM and set "...