Fresh salads in Surat, Gujarati farsan across India — and guides from the kitchen, with the numbers and where they came from.
Salad delivery in Surat — this week’s bowls and plans · Gujarati farsan online — fried after you order · The Pure Bites app
Nutrition & health
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
India’s food regulator has proposed a red hexagon on the front of packaged food that is high in fat, sugar or salt, and the Supreme Court has reserved its order. What is proposed, what is still undecided, and how to read the back of a pack in the meantime.
Nutrition & health
Makhana is almost fat-free, mostly starch, and carries 9–15 g of protein per 100 g. One small study found roasted makhana low-glycaemic. It is a light, useful snack; it is not the protein food the packets suggest. The numbers, and how much to eat.
Nutrition & health
Groundnut oil is about 46% monounsaturated fat and 17% saturated, and in a frying study it lasted 18–20 hours before reaching the discard limit. It is a sound frying oil. It is still oil, and the fresh-versus-reused question matters more than the brand.
Smart snacking
WHO and India’s dietary guidelines both set the limit at 5 g of salt a day — about a teaspoon — and nearly half of Indians are over it. How to turn the sodium on a namkeen label into grams of salt, and what a handful costs you.
Everyday eating
India’s dietary guidelines put added oil and fat at 20–50 g a day depending on how active you are — about 27–30 g on a 2,000 kcal diet. What that is in teaspoons, in a month’s shopping, and where a fried snack fits inside it.
Nutrition & health
GLP-1 medicines shrink appetite, so every small meal has to carry more. What a published expert advisory says about protein, fibre, fluids and the nutrients to watch — translated to dal, paneer, curd and sprouts, with the limits of that translation stated.
Smart snacking
Pulses and nuts have trial evidence behind them, though the effects are modest. Makhana has one small study. Fried namkeen and “sugar-free” biscuits have none. An honest 5 pm list for someone managing blood sugar, from a kitchen that sells fried snacks.
Nutrition & health
A sugar-free sweet swaps the sugar for a polyol or a sweetener and keeps the ghee, khoya and flour. Maltitol still raises blood glucose, polyols carry a laxative warning by law, and WHO advises against sweeteners for weight control. How to read the box before Diwali.
Smart snacking
Air frying uses far less oil, so the snack carries fewer calories. On acrylamide the studies disagree, and an air fryer cannot make every snack. An honest comparison from a kitchen that deep-fries.
Everyday eating
The 2 pm slump has three causes stacked on top of each other: a large, carbohydrate-heavy lunch, the glucose rise and dip that follows it, and a body clock that dips in the early afternoon anyway. Two of the three are fixable at the plate. Here is how, and when the sleepiness is a sign to get a blood test.
Fresh & quality
India is the fastest-growing market for ultra-processed food in the world, and the packet of namkeen on the shelf is part of that number. Fried farsan from a kitchen is not — but it is still fried. What the NOVA system actually counts, what a packet adds that a kadai does not, and where “fresh” makes no difference at all.
Ordering well
Surat eats farsan for breakfast and salad is a new habit. Here is the practical guide: the three places a salad in this city actually comes from, what a bowl costs and why, how delivery works in a city with no cold chain, and the four checks that tell you whether the bowl was made this morning.
Fresh & quality
Oil that has been through a fryer for days looks, smells and tastes different, and so does the snack that came out of it. Six checks anyone can do at the counter, what FSSAI’s 25% total-polar-compounds limit actually measures, what the health evidence says, and how many times a home kadai can honestly reuse oil.
Nutrition & health
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.
Nutrition & health
Three vegetarian proteins, three very different foods. Paneer is the richest and fattiest, tofu the lightest, soya chunks the cheapest by a mile per gram of protein — with a taste and a texture that need a cook. The numbers per 100 g, the cost per 20 g of protein in Surat, what the soya research says, and where each belongs.
Smart snacking
Palm oil is legal, cheap and in most packaged namkeen — the government confirmed as much in Parliament this August. Four label checks that tell you in half a minute whether your packet has it, what the fuss is actually about, and what it is not.
Everyday 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.
Recipes & food ideas
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.
Smart snacking
Three snacks that every Indian kitchen calls healthy, compared honestly per 28 g handful: makhana is the lightest and lowest in protein, peanuts are the most filling and most caloric, roasted chana has the best protein and fibre for its calories. Which wins depends on what you want the snack to do.
Nutrition & health
Sabudana has a reputation as a light, healthy fasting food. Per 100 g it is 358 kcal, 88 g of starch and 0.2 g of protein — pure energy. That is not a reason to stop eating it; it is a reason to know what the peanuts and curd next to it are doing.
Smart snacking
Diwali on 8 November means a fortnight of farsan on every table. You do not have to swap it for kale chips — you have to know which snacks are dry-roasted or steamed, which fried ones are worth their oil, and what a portion looks like. A kitchen’s honest list.
Nutrition & health
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
“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.