Anuradha Sridharan

 For the past few days, whenever I open a Youtube video, the default ad that's being shown is the Nestle Koko Krunch breakfast cereal. Given the success of Kelloggs Chocos and Soulfull ragi bites in the urban markets of India, many brands are vying for a slice of the growing pie. When a brand claims that it is tasty, delicious, kid-favorite, yummy etc, I have no qualms whatsoever. But the moment a processed "breakfast cereal" brand talks about health and nutrition, we need to be a little more vigilant.  Let's first look at the messages being conveyed in these short 20-sec ads: Is your child eager to grow? Highlights that the product contains Calcium + Vitamin D Why are whole grains good for your kids? Highlights that tproduct contains Wheat, rice, jowar and oats, which help fill your child's tummy Is your child low on energy in the morning? Highlights that the product has Vitamins B2, B3 and B6 that help release energy from food The ad also indicates the presence ...

 I came across this interesting insight somewhere. When you are starting your 30s, you usually get a wake-up call from the Universe if you are not aligned with your life's purpose. Each one of us gets this wake-up call. Some of us dismiss it completely and move on with our lives. Some of us hear it but snooze it multiple times, thinking this is not the right time and give ourselves multiple reasons excuses to avoid hearing it.  Some of us pay heed to that wake-up call and start making changes that help us align with our life's purpose. For me, that wake-up call was the arrival of my daughter when I was around 30 years old. I was working for a startup - extremely busy routine, along with a long commute every single day. I then applied for a busier job role at an MNC (longer commute as well). A long interview process, 6 rounds spread over 3 weeks and I got the offer. I accepted the offer for this new job and put my papers down in my current job. 2 days later, my long-awaited pre...

I recently came across this pack that is targeted for the 7+ age bracket. I had earlier shared the  ingredient details  of Pediasure for the age bracket of 2+ years. "GROWTH" - this word has become extremely popular these days in the marketing collateral of various health drink brands available in India. Marketing showcases what the target market wants to hear. Parents want to improve the growth parameters of their children and there is a clear demand for such drinks in urban markets. Let's look in detail about this growth promising drink. The front of the pack states "with oats and almond". And it also shows oats and almonds in bright, attractive images. Read the ingredients list and you will notice the meager values of the same - Oats powder is 1% and almond powder is 1%. The tag line says " Specialized nutrition for growing children ". I started getting curious to figure out what this "specialized formulation" is.  And I also wanted to com...

A few questions I received in DMs in the past week "How do you manage to cook 3-4 varieties each day?" "If all packaged foods from the store is not good, then wouldn't it be strenuous to make everything at home?" "It feels like I'm spending so much time in the kitchen. How to cook more efficiently?" I'll try to answer these three questions through this post.  First and foremost, the lunch plates you are seeing in my feed for the past month aren't how I normally cook. Since my in-laws are staying with me, I'm cooking more than usual. To get the real picture, check out my posts in Oct/Nov. I don't like to cook a lot of variety for each meal. If the menu is kept simple, the time taken to cook will be less.  Set the right expectations with family members. Making chapatis/parathas is a time-consuming process for me. My ILs love to eat chapatis for dinner but I have mentioned to them (even before they arrived) that I'll not be able to...

 Immunity is the buzzword these days, with brands leveraging this magic word left, right and center. Be it their marketing campaigns, advertisements or even the product line variation, brands are exploiting this word big time, given that there is no regulation controlling the use of this important word in the present pandemic situation. A candy loaded with synthetic colors and sugar using the word Immunity must be the biggest joke of 2020. Take a look at the Ingredients list - the first two ingredients are Sugar and Liquid Glucose. Each recommended serving (2 jellies) contain 2 tsp of sugar.  Whether this product provides immunity or not, the added sugar will deplete whatever immunity is already present in the child. The product emphasizes on added Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and Zinc (zinc sulphate) as the sources of immunity. For a serving size of 2 jellies, as per their nutrition facts table, Vitamin C - 20 mg  Zinc - 1.35 mg A single medium sized guava (100 gm) would gi...

  Ever since the lockdown started in March, I haven't really been doing my weekly meal planning or sticking to a meal template as I had shared earlier. I plan only for the very next day's breakfast and lunch. Dinner would mostly be leftovers (from the same day's breakfast or lunch) or a simple khichdi/dosa. Since March, I have been keeping track of the dishes I have cooked in a Google Keep note on my phone. Over the past few days, I have converted it into a Master Menu List. The spreadsheet lover that I am, I have been meaning to make this comprehensive list for quite some time. This master menu list is helpful in multiple ways: Helps me to track the recipes I have tried recently and their respective sources (blogs, videos etc) Gives me a quick inspiration when I run out of ideas Helps me to identify dishes that I can cook with less effort Gives me clarity on what my family members like to eat The spreadsheet by itself may not be of much use to you, as this depends on your...

 I think I was around 8-9 years old when this incident happened. I never used to like cabbage until then. My paati (grandma) used to be the one who cooks food at home. My mom was working. I don't remember the details but for some reason, I didn't like the way cabbage was prepared at home. Then one Sat morning, my mom cooked food at home for a change and she had pressure cooked cabbage. Paati was scared to use a pressure cooker, so it was only used by mom on rare occasions. I loved the taste of cabbage that day and was asking for more. I even called it "panju gos" (cabbage that was as soft as cotton). My mom was so delighted with my reaction as her cooking was rare at home and people hardly appreciated when she did. Anyway, that's a topic for a different day. From that day, cabbage has become one of my top favorite vegetables. D loves to eat potatoes but she prefers only the version where potatoes are finely chopped along with the skin and sauteed (vadakkal kari i...

  Since "immunity" is the buzz word these days, multiple products are cropping up that leverage this word big time in their marketing promotions. One such drink that is being promoted by many influencers is this Mix-me drink.  These celebrities stress on the "12 vitamins and 5 minerals" and they even go onto claim that this is a healthier option than packaged fruit juices.    Let's look at the ingredients list. The very first ingredient is Sugar. One serving sachet of 20 gms contains 19.4 gms of sugar ( nearly 5 tsp of sugar ). The brand promise is increasing immunity but a drink with 5 tsp of sugar will deplete whatever immunity we already have.  Synthetic orange flavor is used, along with artificial color (INS 110 - Sunset yellow). A study by researchers at the University of Southampton has shown evidence of increased hyperactivity in young children who are given foods rich in certain artificial colors and INS 110 is one such color. Let's loo...

  A few weeks back, I had tried a new recipe for lunch using black eyed peas - Goan Alsande Tondak. As usual, my daughter D came to the kitchen and asked what's for lunch. Me: I'm making a new recipe today. It's a dish made by people living in Goa D : Oh okay For the next 30 minutes, she kept asking me now and then whether lunch is ready. She was happy to try the gravy along with a few chapathis.  Kids are curious and they love novelty. Not only that - Give a twist to an existing dish, give a new name and they would get all excited. That's how jaggery wheat dosa become pancakes, savory wheat dosa become crepes, veg oothappams become pizza oothappams 😉 The amazing thing about India is that every 200 kms, the cuisine varies, the taste differs, the ingredients change. The sheer variety offered by the various states within India is just mind-boggling. One lifetime isn't enough to try out all the dishes within the various cuisines of India.  The irony is that though the...

  Whenever I open a Youtube video these days, I stumble upon one of these two ads - Zomato - craving for biryani or pasta? and Kissan's "Iss bhaar Italy ghar le aate hain" Since most of us are avoiding restaurants/takeaways, the only way to eat pasta / pizza (which we used to order B.C.) is to make them at home. Some of us might order the store bought pizza and pasta sauce, so we can quickly whip up a bowl of pasta for dinner or to satiate our kid's cravings. Some of us might even take a step further to sanitize the outer pack. Wait a second, do we sanitize the contents inside? We presume that the contents inside such packs are hygienic. But are they healthy? Let's look at the nutrition label of Kissan's pizza and pasta sauce.       The expiry date is nine months from manufacture. How does this pack last for 9 months? Thanks to this permitted Class II Preservative - 211, also called as Sodium Benzoate.  Quoting from this research paper , "As the result of...

  I'm not a bathroom singer but a "paathiram" singer, if I may say so 🙂 Read further to know why. A sink full of dirty dishes was calling me out. I didn't pay heed to its call as I was deliberately looking away from my kitchen. It was 6:45PM already and I knew it was high time I kicked the laziness out and cleared those dishes. I switched on my phone, opened Spotify app and started to play an ARR playlist with the title "Happy birthday Rahman". The next 40 minutes turned out to be so blissful as I was singing on top of my voice while cleaning the dishes. Songs from Roja, Kadhalan and Indira were playing one after the other - yes, the 90s Rahman! No, I don't belong to that category of Rahman fans who believe his 90s albums were his best work. I enjoy his Singapenne as much as his Chinna Chinna Aasai. Every decade, every album and every song of his has some special moments in them.  As the nation celebrates its Independence Day, we Rahmaniacs are also cel...

  Yesterday was Janmashtami but in my family traditions, Krishna Jayanthi is usually celebrated in the Tamil month of Aavani. So we would be celebrating Krishna's birthday on Sept 10th. But since D was hearing about Janmashtami from her teachers, she wanted to celebrate yesterday. Over the past few days, I had been having this seasonal allergy sniffles (sneezing, running nose etc). This has nothing to do with the top news of 2020. I feel a lot better today :-) Till about 3PM yesterday, I didn't plan anything to celebrate the festival. I then had a nice, warm shower and wore a comfortable saree. The festive mood immediately kicked in. I made a small portion of akkaravadisal (a close cousin of the sweet pongal). I cleaned up the Pooja space and brought the silver lamps from the storage cupboard. D noticed what I was doing. She joined in, brought a few smaller silver lamps. She observed how I was placing the kumkum paste on the edges of the lamp. She did the same to her lamps.  I...

A few days back, when I had shared my time budgeting post on Instagram, someone had DMed me asking if I could share some tips to wake up early. From my experience, the only tip that will help you to wake up early is to have the right motivation . I wake up by 6-6:15AM on a daily basis even during the present lockdown situation when there is no hurry to pack lunch boxes or get my daughter D ready for school.  There are multiple reasons that motivate me to wake up early: I'm a slow starter. I need some time to awaken my senses. I'm not the person who can just wake up and start checking off the items from my to-do list. I need 10-15 minutes to sip my morning chai in peace. I don't like to talk for atleast an hour in the morning. It might seem weird but this is how I am 🙂 I need that quiet time to just be myself. On days when I wake up late or when D wakes up along with me, I find it incredibly challenging to answer her questions. I get irritated at times when I have to talk b...

Are you a working woman? - this is a question that I often get asked by school friends, college friends and on social media. It is curious that this question is asked mostly by women to other women. I recently got asked this question when I posted about how I budget my time , where all the work I do is clearly listed down. Inspite of this, the question still pops up. If your intention is to ask whether I work for an employer, please change your questions to "Are you working for an employer? Are you earning a monthly paycheck?" In my opinion, all women are working. They work for the well-being of their family members. Child care, elderly care, home management - all these are such important and valuable contribution we do for the society. Yes, these are unpaid labour but they are still WORK . So please, women, let's give enough credit to ourselves for doing this work, even though there is no appraisal, paycheck, yearly hikes or promotions. Let's not judge another woman...

  "Wholesome, balanced meal" - I keep mentioning this phrase often in my blog posts as well as in my workshops. I suggest this as a solution to fix sweet cravings, to curb junk foods, to prevent mindless snacking etc. As I pondered deeply on this question - "What is a wholesome, balanced meal?", the initial answers that came to my mind are The meal plate should have a good combination of carbs, proteins, fats and fiber For a vegetarian like me, the meal plate should contain a good proportion of dals, 1-2 vegetables and indigenous rice/millets The plate should include more vegetables and greens I wasn't quite satisfied with these answers. I felt there is something more to a "wholesome, balanced meal". The questioning continued and I reflected on the times when I felt like I have eaten a wholesome, balanced meal. Based on my personal observations, this is the answer I have come up with "A wholesome, balanced meal is the one t...

"Mindful content consumption" or "Dejunk your mind" - pick a name for this exercise. I'm planning to share my journey on how I'm moving away from content overload to conscious content consumption. My first post in this series was on Instagram usage . Check it out if you haven't. In this post, I plan to talk about Youtube content consumption. Though Youtube has been around for a while, the content creation in India started to explode sometime around 2017. More content creators started to use this platform and create content frequently on a wide range of topics.  I have been subscribing to many cooking channels, people who post interesting vlogs, cleaning and organizing videos, product management related content, productivity, time management, and much more. When I tried to curb my Instagram consumption last year by bringing it down to 30 min per day, all I was doing was switching over to Youtube for mindless scrolling and content cons...

Last night, I couldn't sleep and was tossing and turning quite a bit. Then a conversation started happening in me that brought a lot of clarity. Let's call the two characters - Logical Anu (LA) and Dreamer Anu (DA) DA: I'm not able to sleep. And I know the reason. I've been hosting these workshops in the past few weeks but there are hardly any signups. Today, I announced the workshop for Saturday and there's only one confirmed registration so far.  LA: Didn't you say it's for parents with children below 5 years age? How is it possible for them to sit through a 2-hour workshop? DA: That's true....I was hoping that the mother and father can take turns and listen to the workshop, take notes and then have a fruitful interaction on how they can implement some of the ideas being shared. LA: Hmm, that's possible but chances of it happening are farfetched. Child Nutrition is still the sole responsibility of the mother in our society. What ot...

What is me-time? This is a question I'm pondering about.  These are the activities I earlier considered as me-time: reading, browsing my phone (Instagram, Youtube), browsing my laptop (articles, blogs), watching movies. I've started to take a different perspective these days. Me-time is when I'm with myself and my thoughts without any distractions. All the activities I had listed above are not really my thoughts. I'm investing my time and energy in the thoughts of others in the form of books, movies and social media updates. These are filtered information that is being shared. There are quite a few insights that I have gleaned from these sources over the years. But only when I started incorporating those insights in my life, I learned more about what works and what doesn't work for my situation. Learning from others doesn't give a complete picture of the context. What we see/hear/read is only the final outcome that a person shares on...