Nestle Koko Krunch Breakfast cereal review

 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 of the following:

4 grains

Vitamin D and B

Fibre

Iron and Calcium

As always, let's not blindly trust these claims. Let's understand the nutrition labels.

• Whole wheat atta and rice flour contributes to 36% whereas jowar flour and oat flour contributes to only 11.4%
• For a 30gm serving size, the Total Sugars value is mentioned as 7.2 gm (close to 2 tsp of sugar)
• For a brand that highlights "whole grain" so much in their promotions, there is hardly any fibre present - 1.2 gm in a 30 gm serving size
• Presence of maltodextrin (mentioned twice) is a concern. It is a cheap carrier ingredient with an extremely high glycemic index.

Regarding synthetic vitamins and minerals, I'd rather prefer to consume real, natural food sources and let my digestive system extract the required vitamins and minerals. 

As parents, let's take the time to research about packaged foods we buy for our kids. Let's give atleast the same priority (if not more) towards their foods intake as much as we give towards their education and extracurricular activities.

P.S.

The brand promises on retaining the crunch after adding milk and doesn't tend to get soggy (In fine print, it says crunchiness lasts approx 4 minutes after warm milk is poured on the product). Seriously, is this the product differentiator? Did their market study suggest that parents expect crunchy breakfast cereal for their kids rather than soggy ones? 

Our kids don't need packaged, processed, sugar-laden breakfast cereals - crunchy or soggy .

The wakeup call

 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 pregnancy got confirmed along with a fair warning from my gynecologist that I need to be more careful especially in the first 3 months.

I declined the offer for the new job and completed the 2-month notice period of my current job, working from home. 

That single wakeup call triggered multiple wakeup calls in me

• Why it is high time I prioritize my health and well-being
• Why I need to get the confidence and knowledge to raise a child when there is NO help/support from extended family (husband of course, always supports me in whichever way possible)
• Understanding the true nature of many relationships and their mindsets
• Realizing that career is not all about climbing the corporate ladder, rise in paychecks, and chasing after promotions and titles
• Identifying my passions and interests, understanding what puts me in a state of flow, and gives me satisfaction and happiness
• Getting the perspectives on what's important in my life, what my priorities are, and how I want to contribute to the world

If you are in your late 20s/early 30s, make sure you listen to that wake-up call. Don't ignore, dismiss or snooze it. It is unique to your life situation - a new opportunity, a new interest, a new relationship, etc. Pay attention to that wake-up call.

Pediasure 7+ health drink Review

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 compare it with the 2+ age group product variant to understand what has changed.

As you can see from this table, the carbohydrate value has increased quite a bit. The Sugar value has also slightly increased. If the child is not physically active, all these excess carbs end up stored as fat. No wonder, kids who drink Pediasure put on weight so fast.

The front of the pack talks about High-quality protein. From the ingredients list, the source of the protein is skim milk powder. The protein value is quite low - 11 gm per 100 gm. 

Fats have reduced drastically in this 7+ variant. So the majority of the calorie contribution comes from carbohydrates through cheap ingredients like maltodextrin and sugar.

Except for calcium, the rest of the key vitamins and minerals look more or less similar between the two variants.

Milk powder and maltodextrin mixed with sugar, synthetic vitamins and minerals, cocoa powder, and a cryptic artificial flavor - that's all the special formulation is. MRP of 400 gm pack is Rs.395. 

Cheap ingredients are being marketed as superior. Do we need such "unnatural" formulations for our growing children? 

Time Management Tips for Efficient Cooking

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 make them daily.

I have earmarked the timings for cooking and set the expectations that I'll not be entering the kitchen at other times.

8:45-9:15am - cook breakfast

11:45-12:45pm - lunch

4-4:30pm - tea/snacks

6-6:30pm - dinner (timing varies depending on the menu)

People like to eat breakfast at different timings, so I prefer to make something that can be prepared and kept in a hot pack - idli, Pongal, upma, etc. No dosas/pooris/idiyappam/adai etc. 

Menu planning is super helpful in deciding what to cook. I plan the entire day's menu the previous night.

Certain things need to be prepped ahead to stick to these timings. I distribute the prep work throughout the week (not clubbed together for a single day/weekend). 

• Idli batter (twice a week)
• Sambhar powder/rasam powder (once a month)
• Other spice powders - coriander powder/pepper powder/cumin powder, etc (once a month)
• Idli chutney podi - two varieties stocked up (twice a month)
• Sort out the veggies (once a week)
• Grate coconut (once a week)
• Make sprouts (once a week)
• Arrange groceries, refill the bottles (once a week)

Things do get a little haywire if such prep work isn't taken care of at the right time. I usually spend around 20-30 min in the evenings or take up such prep work along with cooking lunch/dinner.

Lunch is the main meal where I plan more variety. I use a three-burner stove which speeds up my cooking. My ILs prefer to eat the typical kuzhambu+rasam+poriyal kinda menu (more tamarind), whereas I prefer to eat more veggies and less tamarind (kootu+poriyal/thogaiyal/raitha/salad etc). So I plan the menu in such a way that I don't compromise on either of our requirements. 

Snacks time is mostly fruits, dry fruits/nuts, popcorn, lemonade/smoothies, etc. I occasionally bake a treat for D, which she eats during her evening snack time.

I prefer to have an early dinner - mostly rice with leftovers from lunch. On days when I'm tired, dinner for others will be dosa+podi. On normal days, a simple one-pot kichdi/soup/upma gets done in 30 minutes.

In summary, keeping the menu simple, setting the right expectations, doing the required prep work, and sticking to cooking timings WITHOUT any distractions are some of the ways by which you could manage your time efficiently in the kitchen.

I invest around 3-3.5 hours per day in the kitchen for the health and well-being of myself and my family members. If this time (and effort) is not invested, then the only alternative is to rely on the market factors to provide for our food needs. As we all know, relying on packaged foods/takeaways/restaurants aren't good options for our health. 

So this time and effort investment is required until we find a reliable alternative (community kitchen, home chefs who use quality ingredients, plastic-free packaging, etc)

Other articles on the same topic

How I do meal planning?

9 tips for meal prep and meal planning

Jelimals Immunoz Review

 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 give around 220 mg of Vitamin C.

A serving of capsicum (100 gm) would give around 120 mg of Vitamin C.

Most vegetables and greens provide more Vitamin C than these sugar-loaded jellies.

Let's look at Zinc. 100 gm of wholewheat flour provides 2.85 gm of Zinc. Most nuts and seeds provide adequate amounts of Zinc. So are the lentils and pulses that we commonly use in Indian cooking. Do refer to this compilation of sources of Zinc along with their values.

The first two phrases about Vitamin C and Zinc are targeting the parents whereas the last two phrases about exciting toys and fun fruit flavours are targeting the young kids. When I showed this article to my daughter, the first thing she spotted was the Toys. It didn't catch my attention whatsoever. Here's her comment verbatim - "If the kids buy these toys and they don't use them, then it goes to waste". How much of cheap plastic being used and wasted!

The fun fruit flavours are nothing but nature identical flavours and attractive synthetic food colours. 

Let's be vigilant about what we buy for our kids in the name of immunity. 

My Master Menu List - How I track recipes?

 

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:

1. Helps me to track the recipes I have tried recently and their respective sources (blogs, videos etc)
2. Gives me a quick inspiration when I run out of ideas
3. Helps me to identify dishes that I can cook with less effort
4. 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 eating preferences, cuisines and your family members. Instead of sharing the entire spreadsheet, let me share the template and the thought behind it, so you can make one for yourself.

 

Master Menu List Template

 

Create a Google spreadsheet. This sheet needs to be easily accessible over phone and editable too. So an Excel sheet on your laptop may not be very helpful.

 

Create various sheets as per your need - I have created 5 sheets

1. Breakfast
2. Side dishes (North Indian)
3. Side dishes (South Indian)
4. Other cuisines
5. Sweets/desserts/snacks

Under each sheet, I have created the following columns

1. Category
2. Dish Name
3. Effort required (Low/Medium/High)
4. Pre-preparation needed (Yes/No)
5. Family member's preferences (If a family member likes the dish, then add an Yes. Else, add a No)
6. Recipe source (URL / Blog name / Youtube channel name)

Once you have this template ready, 

1. Add all the dishes you usually make. This shouldn't take more than an hour, unless you cook a LOT of variety 🙂
2. Every time, you try a new recipe and it comes out well, add a row in the respective sheet, with all the details. The most important, being the recipe source
3. Create filters for effort and pre-preparation. When you want to plan your daily/weekly menu, quickly glance through the list, filter out based on the required criteria

Optional columns to add - last made date, variations from the recipe, dependency on ingredients that are usually not available in your kitchen etc. Customize it as per your need.

This is a work-in-progress tracker and it may not be a complete, exhaustive list, which is perfectly okay. The idea is to get started and stay inspired.

Hope this template is helpful. Do you use any other methods to track the recipes you cook? Share in the comments below.

Exposure to tastes

 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 in Tamil). She doesn't like the version where whole potatoes are boiled or pressure cooked, chopped into cubes and sauteed with spice powders. 

The taste of any preparation differs based on the cooking technique followed, the seasoning used, the spices added, the way veggies are chopped and numerous other factors, including the mindset of the person cooking the meal.

We quickly dismiss our children as "fussy eaters", "don't like to eat veggies", "doesn't like Indian food" etc. We make such fast conclusions with kids as young as 2 years. How much of exposure have our children received before we reach such conclusions? How many different vegetables do we buy in a week/month? How many different ways have we tried preparing the vegetables?

Have we put in the required effort before resorting to quick-fix solutions from a pack - health mix powders, fortified fruit juices or drink powders loaded with synthetic vitamins and minerals? The attractive marketing and the tall health claims are influencing us to take such snap decisions.

We are living amidst a wealth of information. Just a google search for "cabbage recipes Indian" will yield at least 25 different ways of preparing this vegetable. I'm so grateful to the numerous food bloggers and vloggers who have taken the effort to document many traditional recipes from various regions. It is up to us to develop the curiosity and interest towards exploring and cooking, regardless of age, gender, income, designation, working status etc.

Umpteen options are waiting in line that discourages us from taking this path. Online food delivery apps, packaged foods, instant foods etc all with the promise of convenience and "health-washing". Not to forget the time stealing distractions like social media, Netflix and other streaming apps that take away our precious time which can be put to better use.

Cooking is a productive activity for our health and well-being. Not something to be outsourced to third parties.

Nu-Shakti Mix me Ingredients Review

 

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 look at the synthetic vitamins and their respective values.

 

 

As you can see, natural, real foods can give us plenty of required nutrients as compared to such synthetic, sugar-loaded mixes.

Parents, let's ALWAYS choose real foods for our child's immunity and avoid such products. Let's invest the extra effort needed to plan and cook with real foods and avoid these unhealthy shortcuts.

References:

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2007/09/hyperactivity-in-children-and-food-additives.page

https://www.anuradhasridharan.com/2020/06/plant-based-sources-of-selenium.html

https://www.anuradhasridharan.com/2018/01/plant-based-sources-of-zinc.html

Cuisines of India

 

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 there is so much variety, visit any multi-cuisine restaurant, the menu is more or less the same. If you want to eat authentic food from a particular region, it isn't an easy task, even in a cosmopolitan city like Bangalore. 

The exposure to Western cuisines is so huge, thanks to pizza and burger outlets in every nook and corner. Our aspiration and interest towards procuring cupcakes, sourdough bread and kombucha is so high, compared to trying out a panjeeri laddoo or a bowl of paal kozhukkattais.

I have heard comments like "What's in TN cuisine? Just one brown liquid after another poured on top of rice".

I cannot control what others think or perceive about various Indian cuisines. But what I can do is increase my repertoire of recipes and try out different dishes for my family and ensure my daughter gets as much exposure about cuisines from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

Kissan Pizza and Pasta Sauce Review

 

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 long term intake even though it is small amount, the preservatives may cause harm to consumers within some sickness and in chromosomes level. The following adverse effects of food preservatives are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rhinitis, bronchospasm, migraine, anaphylaxis, and hyperactivity in children"

The paper talks about how sodium benzoate toxicity can result in DNA damage. 

Sodium benzoate when used with foods containing Vitamin C causes the formation of benzene, a known carcinogen. 

Making a marinara sauce at home for pasta or pizza is super easy. Homemade, fresh, hygienic and without any harmful preservatives. I'm sure no Italian would add a few drops of sodium benzoate to his pasta sauce. If we want to bring Italy home, let's learn the proper method of making the sauce at home and avoid these harmful shortcuts.

Let's read the nutrition labels and avoid ALL products that contain any form of class II preservatives.

Singing, ARR and freedom

 

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 celebrating 28 years of AR Rahman on this very day. As much as I enjoy listening to his songs, I love singing them too. BUT the moment I start singing, D would immediately request/plead/beg/order me to stop it. For some reason, she hates it whenever I sing at home or in the car. 

I got the perfect chance to sing to my heart's content this evening as D and K were busy with monopoly in the other room. I experienced that sense of freedom - to sing freely with no inhibitions or interruptions. It's been a long time since I did the singing session at home. And so it gets recorded in my blog.

P.S. Paathiram in Tamil means dishes :-)

Why I celebrate all festivals?

 

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 asked her, "Do you want to give bath to baby Krishna?"

She was thrilled to do this activity. I gave her a small bowl of warm water and she nicely gave a bath to little Krishna idols. She remarked, "Krishna is getting ready for his birthday party!".

I then said to her, "We didn't buy any flower for the Pooja"

D quickly responded, "Don't worry mummy. I'll pluck some flowers from the garden"

She rushed to the balcony and brought a bunch of fresh, red Exura flowers. She plucked a few tiny flowers and added to the warm water. "Krishna needs flowers in his bath water", she said.

I lit the lamps, she lit the incense sticks. A simple Pooja was done and we then relished the akkaravadisal.

During this time, my sniffles also reduced a lot and I felt happy. It was one-hour of productive and screen-free activity time for D.

Why am I sharing this? 

Come festive season, there will be a few posts circulating on social media saying that women slog so much during the festival days, cooking and cleaning while men don't do anything except attend the Pooja. I saw a tweet a few weeks back on similar lines. 

My question to such tweets - Is the slogging forced or been done as a happy, voluntary activity? That is the important question that all of us need to ponder.

While growing up, I observed how my two grandmothers worked so hard during festivals, preparing all the delicacies and an elaborate festive meal with a lot of happiness and dedication. These festival days made my childhood so special and memorable. As an adult in my 20s working full-time in the software industry, I didn't do much during these special days, except for making a simple payasam. These festival days were more like a holiday from work, where I could wake up late and relax the whole day. None of my family members forced me to follow the festive traditions. I wasn't so keen either.

As I entered my 30s and when my little girl was around 2-3 years old, this realization dawned on me - "If I don't introduce the festivals, traditions and practices to her at home, then she wouldn't get the exposure". Her grandparents live in a different city and they are not the type who would make homemade treats to their granddaughter like the way my grandmothers did for me. So it is up to me as a mother to decide how I want to celebrate the festivals. I can choose to just relax without doing much or take up a lot of work and keep whining that I HAVE to do everything on my own. Instead of these two options, I chose a third option - celebrate every festival in a way that gives me happiness and doesn't overwhelm me and D gets to experience a slice of these traditions.

In the past 6-7 years, I have been celebrating every single festival with a lot of joy and happiness. The menu may not be as elaborate as how my grandmothers used to prepare. But I still prepare whatever I can, do a simple Pooja and involve D in whatever manner possible. Along the way, I have learned to cook many traditional recipes.

I strongly believe that it is my responsibility as a mother to pass on such family traditions and values to my daughter. I'm not expecting that my daughter should follow the same in her adulthood. My responsibility ends with the exposure and it is her choice to follow them or not.

Motivation to wake up early

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:

1. 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.
2. 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 but I don't want to.
3. I get atleast a couple of hours of quiet time for myself in the mornings. Before the lockdown, I used to get more quiet time (4-5 hours) at home when K is in office and D is in school. I miss those quiet afternoons, when suddenly I get a random dose of inspiration to do some deep work, write an article, cook a new recipe, read a few pages or just lie down on the couch and relax after lunch. Such quiet afternoons are not possible these days. Without these quiet times, the days feel so rushed and the channels to express myself feel unattended.
4. Another option to get this quiet time is to grab a couple of hours in the night after D goes to sleep. But this would end up disturbing my sleep cycle. I want to align as much as possible to the circadian rhythm.
5. What I have also noticed is that if I miss my morning time for Yoga practice, I'm not allocating any time during the rest of the day. A simple 30-min Yoga practice makes a load of difference to how my day progresses.

Motivation comes through observation of our own self - What we want, how we want to start our day, our priorities, our reactions when those priorities are not met and how we express ourselves as an individual (apart from the varied roles we perform throughout the day).

Tips like "keep an alarm 15 minutes before your usual time", "don't snooze", "keep your alarm at a distance where you have to walk and switch it off" are tactical. Until and unless there is enough motivation to wake up early, these tips wouldn't really work. Speaking from a personal experience 🙂

Are you a working woman?

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, based on whether she works for an employer or works for her home.

Let's also not put a value on ourselves based on the monthly salary we bring home. We are adding tremendous value to our family in so many non-monetary ways. Let's take pride in that and pat ourselves on the back.

MONEY - Is that all we value? It might be easy to quantify and compare. But relationships, personal satisfaction, good health, contentment and peace are extremely valuable, although they aren't easy to quantify.

I gain tremendous satisfaction and meaning from the food-related blogging work I have been doing for the past 5-6 years. I don't earn a penny from my blog but the comments and messages from readers are so valuable to me.

"My health has improved so much thanks to reading your blog. I have stopped eating all packaged foods"

"My pregnancy was smooth because I chose to eat home cooked foods as you suggested" 

Is it even possible to associate a monetary value to such comments?

Many women do similar work through which they find meaning for themselves and contribute to the society. Let's not ridicule their efforts by asking "Are you a working woman?"

P.S. I worked full time for 9 years before I had my daughter in 2011. Since 2013, I have been working from home / taking up part-time consulting projects / telecommute (partial work from office) etc. Right now, I don't work for any employer.

What is a Wholesome, balanced meal?

 

"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

1. The meal plate should have a good combination of carbs, proteins, fats and fiber
2. For a vegetarian like me, the meal plate should contain a good proportion of dals, 1-2 vegetables and indigenous rice/millets
3. 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 that gives YOU SATIETY"

First, the focus is on YOU, the individual. The meal that makes me satiated may not make you feel satiated and vice versa. That's the reason why generic diet plans don't work. Each of our preferences, taste buds and satiety levels are quite different. It is best to understand the key principles in nutrition and then take the responsibility to come up with a meal plan for ourselves.

Let's come to the key topic - SATIETY

Satiety is the feeling of satisfaction we get after eating a good meal. 

Being satiated means that we don't think about food for the next 3-4 hours. 

Being satiated means we don't feel sluggish and drowsy after a meal.

When you eat a pack of chips, do you feel satiated? No

When you eat a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast, do you feel satiated? No

That's because of the fact that most packaged/junk foods are "calorie-rich, nutrient-poor". After eating such foods, our body craves nutrients and we end up feeling hungry within 30-45 minutes. 

Being mindful of how we feel after eating a meal will help us understand the kind of meals that give us satiety. Food tracking in a journal is quite helpful to identify the patterns. Apart from tracking the "What", "How much" and "When", it is also important to track "How did the meal make me feel?"

Satiated, 

Over-eaten, 

Deprived,

Sleepy,

Bloated, 

Sweet craving post the meal

Examples of meals that make me feel satiated

• Handpounded rice, sambhar, 1-2 vegetable kari
• Bisibhelebhaath, raitha and pappad
• Matta rice, aviyal, rasam and pappad
• Idli with a chutney or sambhar
• Phulkas, dal and sabji/salad

Examples of meals that don't make me feel satiated

• Lemon rice, potato kari
• Pasta
• Idli with molagapodi
• Salad as a meal
• Soup + Salad

Satiety depends on multiple factors - not just the right combination of carbs+proteins+fats. It depends on our individual food preferences, foods we ate while growing up, foods that our digestive system feels happy about. 

The ONLY way to figure such meals is by OBSERVATION and AWARENESS within oneself.  Calorie tracking apps or dietitians cannot help us here. Machine learning algorithms can't predict whether a meal will make us feel satiated or not. It is only up to us to figure that out.

How I brought down my Youtube subscriptions from 148 to 28?

"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 consumption that captured my attention at that very point in time. There have been days when my Youtube watch time was nearly 3 hours 😞 I would end up watching so many recipes but would have tried only a few. When I questioned myself on my behavior, it wasn't fear of missing out (FOMO). Rather, it was the thirst towards learning and gathering new information on topics I'm most interested in. Also, whenever I would complete a task, I would end up relaxing for 10-15 minutes with my phone, consuming more content from Youtube. I felt like I deserved it and that it was my me-time.

Off late, my perspective towards me-time has shifted and I want to become more conscious about the information I feed my mind. Here's the step-by-step process of how I cleaned up my Youtube channel subscriptions.

1) I need to first become aware of the number of channels I'm subscribed to. Awareness is the key to making any change in our lives. As on 1st July 7:30PM, I was shocked to note that I had subscribed to 148 channels. I didn't expect this high number.

2) I had set myself a target that I would bring it down to 50 channels. I also announced it as an Instagram story to keep myself accountable.

3)The very same night, I sat down for 30 minutes and started unsubscribing to many channels using the following criteria:

• Channels from which I haven't viewed content in the past one month
• Channels that no longer upload any videos
• Channels on topics that I no longer invest any effort in - there were a few channels that I had subscribed related to B2B sales, selling, sales enablement etc when I used to work with Mindtickle back in 2014-15.

Coming to the second criteria, as I was scrolling through the list, I came across this channel "geetradhu". I used to be a big fan of mama and mami a few years back. Such fun and candid conversations. But for the past year, they haven't uploaded any videos and as a subscriber, I had no idea that no new content was being posted. Our attention is being hijacked by the new and shiny.  On Instagram, if I remember someone not posting for a while, I might DM him/her to check if everything is okay. Let me admit, this happens extremely rarely. Whenever I take a break, I do hear from 5-6 people who would care to check if I'm doing okay. This is mainly due to our own efforts. The platforms don't enable such options.

Does any platform provide a way to connect with people who are no longer uploading/posting content? "Hey, you have been following geetradhu but they haven't uploaded in a while. Do you wanna message and check with them?" 

If I were a product manager of a social media platform, I would prioritize this feature. 

I digressed a bit here, but this needed to be highlighted.

After the first pass, I brought the subscriptions down to 72. Yes, around 50% unsubscribed.

4)I took a break for a couple of days and came back to this exercise. The main reason we subscribe to a channel is to ensure we don't miss out on their latest uploads. For videos that can be searched, we can simply use the Search option. For example, recipe videos can be easily searched given the name of the recipe. If we like a particular video, we can Save it. There is no need to be subscribed to a channel for these use cases.

Subscription is a way of inviting new content to our attention.

For the second round of cleanup, I asked myself a simple question, "Do I look forward to this content creator's new videos?" Using this question, I have now brought down my subscriptions to 28. Yes 28. Much less than the target of 50 🙂 So this gives me leeway to subscribe to a few more content creators if I find their content worthy of my attention.

Our attention is such a precious resource. Let's use it wisely. 

I see so many random vloggers who vlog every single detail of their lives. There is quite a bit of drama created in many of the vlogs. TV Serial makers can go on retirement now 😉 The thumbnail image and the title caption is being used extensively to grab our attention. Why invest our time and attention in such unwanted dramas?

Even if I choose to ignore all the drama creators and follow people who post useful content, how much of the content have I actually started practicing in my own life? What's the point of overloading our brains with more information if we are not putting it to use?

If you are spending too much time on Youtube, I hope these pointers will help you become more conscious of your content consumption.

Last but not the least, after you do this cleanup, whenever you are browsing Youtube, make sure you check the Subscription tab ONLY. If we go to "Recommended" section, we are again sucked into the world of content overload.  

The conversation

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 other reasons do you think?

DA: Maybe, people have other commitments at the same time

LA: Yes, many online workshops are happening on Saturdays, people might have signed up for them.

DA: Also, there's a possibility that people might think Rs.500 for a 2-hour workshop is steep

LA: You have put in so much effort in researching, exploring and compiling the content for the workshop. If you offer it for free, people won't value it. I don't believe Rs.500 is steep in today's standards

DA: People might also think "She has been sharing her content for free through her blog and Instagram. Why pay for a workshop?"

LA: Yes, that's a valid point. But the blog content is based on individual ideas. You have tied them together in a proper structure for the workshop, along with personal experiences and anecdotes. That's what makes it valuable.

DA: True, I'm confident in the content I have prepared.

LA: What about marketing? What are the channels have you explored?

DA: I just posted on Instagram stories and updated my blog.

LA: Duh, Have you forgotten all you learned about marketing in your MBA programme? You will have to identify your target audience, figure out the online spaces where they frequent (groups, social media) and promote your workshop aggressively. 

DA: Hold on, I'm not looking for a large crowd. If I can empower at least 10 parents with the information I share, I'm more than happy. 

LA: How about influencers on Instagram? Did you reach out to any of them?

DA: No, I find the whole process so artificial. If anyone believes what I'm offering can make a difference in someone's lives, they would be motivated to share it themselves. Sucking up to influencers is definitely not my cup of tea. I have seen how an individual who used to say nasty things about an influencer then goes onto commenting nice things on every single post of that influencer, just because she wants to promote her business. I don't want to label her as a hypocrite because that's how the system is designed to be. 

LA: You are one adamant girl with respect to your principles. Maybe, you should put up videos of D more often. And for God's sake, why D? Why not reveal her real name? 

DA: hahaha....D is my daughter but that doesn't give me the right to invade her privacy. She might be too young to understand privacy but I don't want to use her. I see so many parents sharing videos of their kids, just before announcing their workshop on parenting. Why are these so-called influencers painting such a rosy picture of their lives? Why aren't they also showing reality? 

LA: Again, it is your personal value system coming to play here. It is your choice not to show a video of your daughter in a public forum, as much as it is their choice to show videos of their kids.

DA: Moreover, how is it going to help a young mother when she sees my daughter eating a bowl of veggies? If her child doesn't eat vegetables, it will only make her feel uncomfortable. I'd rather share the process I experienced and learned that has helped me in making my daughter eat her vegetables.

LA: That's a good perspective. Maybe, you should make your posts sound extremely aspirational. People will then feel more curious. Why not share raw vegan ideas or similar such higher goals? Why post a picture of kesari and bajji?

DA: I want people to know the reality, lady.....this is what I eat. People should be able to relate to me easily. This will motivate them to implement the ideas I share. We can aim to climb to step 10 of the ladder, only if we climb steps 1 to 9. Just standing at step 1 and looking at people in step 10 wouldn't help. 

LA: Phew....I ran out of my logical questions now. What do you plan to do?

DA: I enjoy conducting these workshops. I'm in a total state of "flow" during those 2 hours where I get to talk about the topic I'm most passionate about. I wish I had this information handed to me in a platter when D was a baby. I want young mothers to feel empowered. So even if it is just one registration, I'm going ahead with it. I don't treat this as a business but my CALLING. I'm answering this calling in multiple ways, one of them being these workshops. While I do my duty, the universe will take care of bringing the people. 

Me-time

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 any platform. This blogpost is a filtered output of my thoughts on how I have started to interpret me-time.

Let's take social media as an example - we only share what we want others to see. We don't share a complete view of us - the good, the bad and the ugly. Firstly, it is humanly impossible to share each and everything that happens in our day-to-day lives. Even if we roam around with a camera on hand all the time, we filter and show only the parts of our day which we feel like sharing.

When we see a post, our mind immediately creates a perception of the person sharing that post. These perceptions are shortcuts that our mind creates to categorize people. This happens subconsciously based on our beliefs, the environment we grew up in and many other factors.

These mental shortcuts are useful for us to foresee any danger and be prepared to fight/flight. But they can also mislead us and we might end up forming false perceptions of a person. "Don't judge a book by its cover" equivalent of "Don't judge a person based on what he/she shares on social media", if I may say so.

Recently, I had assumed something about a person based on what she shared on her social media feed but later when I realized the assumption was wrong, I felt a tinge of disappointment.

My point is that we try to grab our "me-time" from our loved ones, in order to scroll through our phones and absorb these false perceptions created on social media. Same goes with youtube channels where many people show their perfectly crafted lives in the form of vlogs but the reality is totally different. 

Yes, we can take inspiration from many people but a mere collection of ideas will not take us anywhere. As I reflect deeper, the books I love the most are those from which I have been able to incorporate certain ideas into my work or personal life. 

I'm trying to be more mindful and conscious of my "content consumption" these days. I have started to ask myself the following questions:

How much time I'm spending on consumption?

What is the quality of the content I'm consuming? Is it worth my time?

How much is the quantity of the content I'm consuming? Is it worth the context switch I'm experiencing, consuming on a wide range of topics?

How do I feel after consuming the content? Is it triggering or influencing my emotions in any way?

What are the learnings/takeaways from the content consumed? How do I plan to apply the same?

As I'm reducing my content consumption patterns, I'm also trying to grab me-time opportunities where I'm with my thoughts completely. An important idea I learned in my minimalism workshop with Durgesh Nandhini is this - "Chores are a form of meditation with eyes open". This statement was an eye-opener. Though I never detested doing chores at home, I never thought of it from this perspective.

Thanks to lockdown, I'm more engaged in household chores for which I had a house-help earlier. I'm also now making sure that I don't multitask while doing chores. I used to proclaim, "multitasking is my strength" but I now seek out opportunities to focus completely on a single task at hand without any distractions.

My me-time is now shifted to the following activities:

• Cooking
• Washing dishes
• Sweeping and mopping
• Folding clothes
• Journaling
• Meditation
• Yoga and Pranayama
• Walking (no step counters, no music, no podcasts, no audiobooks)
• Sitting quietly without doing anything - toughest one but I'm trying 🙂

What is me-time according to you?

P.S. The structure of this blog post came to me while washing dishes last evening :-)