Anuradha Sridharan

I came across this brand through Instagram sponsored ads this morning. The ad message makes it sound like this is olive oil for everyday cooking. On digging deeper, I realized this is blended oil - meaning it is a combination of two or more oils. I started looking at the product images shared on popular e-commerce sites but the photos were so blurry that I couldn't figure out the exact composition. In BigBasket, the proportion is listed as below: Refined rice-bran oil - 80% Refined olive pomace oil - 20% Brand Name is Oleev. The word "olive oil" is clearly mentioned in the front of the pack. It is called out explicitly in digital advertising copy. BUT the percentage of olive oil is ONLY 20% 1 liter of rice-bran oil is around ₹125 whereas 1 liter of this blended oil is ₹185. The brand makes a nice profit because we blindly fall for the name "olive oil" without looking into the finer print. Now that online grocery shopping is on the rise, it is even ...

I love planners and diaries so much. I love making lists. I had been a diligent list maker on Evernote for years. I had also tried a few to-do apps for managing my tasks, Google Keep to add random notes, Evernote for journaling etc. Sometime last year, after reading Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism , I felt I didn't want to be tracking everything online across a variety of apps and tools. There wasn't any consistency, my thoughts were dumped randomly without a proper system in place and most importantly, I had to use my phone/laptop often to track every little thing. I also realized a planner or a diary is too rigid and is meant only for handling one use case. I don't want to use 3-4 different notebooks - one for planning, one for tracking, one for journaling, one for note-taking etc.      Since June last year, I had been maintaining this system and I'm quite happy with it so far. I call this my "all-in-one notebook". I got this 5-subject ruled ...

I stumbled upon this book in the "Read for free" collection on Kindle store. Kavita Devgan's Ultimate Grandmother Hacks was such an engaging and interesting read! The author has compiled a list of 50 lifestyle habits that our ancestors used to practice diligently which we have long forgotten. The content is similar to that of Rujuta Diwekar's but the writing style is slightly different.  Kavita sets the context beautifully by narrating snippets from her childhood, her interactions with her mom and her food memories. The first habit she emphasizes on is to understand the pH of our food. She elaborates on the acidic vs alkaline foods. One of the key take-aways for me is  "When you exercise, the body takes in more oxygen, which helps to expel the acids from the body" Next, she focuses on the importance of eating a balanced meal with all tastes including bitter tasting foods. A couple of points I learned from this chapter are "The amou...

A few days back, I had posted on Instagram about how my lockdown days are progressing. I had mentioned about following a routine - sleep by 10:30PM and wake up by 6:30AM, having a fixed time for sweeping/mopping the house etc. One of the DMs I received related to this post - " Aren't schedules boring? Life becomes so predictable and monotonous ."  It was an interesting question and I had been thinking about why I follow a schedule. Firstly, I follow a schedule/routine during weekdays. I don't follow a similar schedule during weekends. For eg, today being a Saturday, I woke up only at 7:45AM, had breakfast at 11AM, ate lunch at 2:30PM etc. No exercise/Yoga. I spent the afternoon watching Mr. Family Man standup comedy and had a hearty laugh. Now, coming to the question of why do I follow a schedule. This is my personal opinion. Yours might be completely different and it is perfectly okay.  A schedule is required for anyone who has a responsibility ...