Every Pure Bites article tagged seasonal produce.
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.
Everyday eating
I feel weak and hungry all day during the Navratri fast — what should I actually be eating?
Nine days of vrat food is nine days of sabudana if you let it be — and sabudana is starch. Here is what the fasting staples actually carry per 100 g, which combinations keep you full and steady, and how to build a fast that does not end in a 4 pm headache.
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.
Kitchen & sourcing
Was my meal really made today?
From the market at half past five to the last sealed bowl. What a salad day actually looks like in our kitchen, including the parts that are dull.
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.
Fresh & quality
I can’t tell fresh produce from produce that just looks fresh.
Our head chef buys produce six mornings a week. These are the checks he actually uses at the mandi — stem, weight, smell, cut — and they work just as well in your own kitchen.
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.