How to keep vegetables interesting for a whole week without cooking anything complicated.
Nutrition & health
Is til as good for bones and health as people say, and how much should I eat?
Whole sesame carries 975 mg of calcium and 14.6 mg of iron per 100 g, with 17.7 g of protein and mostly unsaturated fat. Hulled sesame has far less calcium. What trials say about blood pressure, and what jaggery does to a chikki.
Nutrition & health
Is rajgira actually healthier than wheat, or is it just allowed during fasts?
Rajgira is the fasting grain that outscores wheat on protein, iron and magnesium, carries the amino acid most grains lack, and has no gluten. Nine benefits with the numbers per 100 g, what the evidence supports, and how to cook it so it is not a paste.
Recipes & food ideas
I want to eat millets but I am bored of bajra roti — how else can I use them?
Millets are the grain India rediscovered and then put back into roti. They are better as a grain bowl: cooked, cooled, dressed with lemon, tossed with pulses and vegetables — a lunch that travels, holds, and carries the fibre and minerals millets are famous for. Three bowls, with the numbers.
Nutrition & health
What should I eat for gut health — do I need probiotics, or is there something in normal Indian food?
Sixty-one percent of Indian consumers now say gut health matters to them, and most of what they are sold for it is a bottle. The foods that actually feed a healthy gut are already in the kitchen: chaas, curd, dal, sprouts, onion, oats, bananas. What each does, what the science supports, and what it does not.
Nutrition & health
I keep hearing about fibermaxxing — how much fibre should I eat and what Indian foods have it?
“Fibermaxxing” is the year’s nutrition trend — deliberately eating a lot of fibre for gut, blood sugar and fullness. The Indian plate was doing this before it had a name. Here is what 30 g a day looks like in dal, sabzi, fruit and roti, and how to get there without a week of bloating.
Nutrition & health
Are sprouts really healthier than plain moong, or is that a myth?
What sprouting actually changes in a mung bean — more vitamin C, less phytate, easier digestion — with the numbers, what it does not change, and how to sprout and eat them safely.
Nutrition & health
Is pomegranate really a superfood?
What a katori of pomegranate arils actually carries — 4 g fibre, vitamin C, potassium and the polyphenols the “superfood” claims rest on — with the numbers, what the research shows so far, and where the claims outrun it.
Nutrition & health
Is broccoli actually that much better than cabbage or cauliflower?
Broccoli carries 89 mg of vitamin C and a day’s vitamin K in 100 g for 34 kcal, plus folate, fibre and the sulforaphane the research is excited about. The numbers, the evidence, and how to cook it so the vitamins survive.
Recipes & food ideas
I want something quick that is filling and not boring.
A fifteen-minute bowl with real protein in it, written with the weights and timings we actually use, including the sprouting step most recipes skip.
Everyday eating
Healthy food becomes boring after three days.
Healthy food gets boring on about day three. It is nearly always a texture and dressing problem, not a vegetable problem — and both are cheap to fix.
Smart snacking
I want something to put out for guests that isn’t just another bowl of sev.
The flat, flaky half of a farsan box. What separates the four puris we make, which of them are actually coloured with vegetables, and what to put them out with.
Smart snacking
I only ever buy plain sev and I don’t know what the other kinds are for.
Sev is one dough and a dozen personalities. What actually changes between them, which one belongs on a chaat, and which one to keep away from guests who do not like heat.
Smart snacking
There are five kinds of gathiya on the shelf and I don’t know which one I want.
Five gathiya on one tray, all besan, all different. What separates them is thickness, moisture and how long they sit in the oil — here is how to tell them apart and when to eat each.
Kitchen & sourcing
I want to know why the same vegetable tastes completely different in March and August.
Seasonal is not a moral position. It is a nutrition and flavour argument, and in Gujarat it is also a price argument. Here is what changes month to month in our kitchen.