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How food has changed with generations!
Delhi based Sharmilla Kannan shares how her 84 year old mother and 21 year old daughter share the same diet and are healthier for it.
When I was young, my mother who firmly believed that doctors should not be consulted, never gave any medicines to her three children. My mother was born at home and has never been vaccinated. In pre-independence India, in the deep interiors of Tamil Nadu, there was no doctor close by. She always treated us with herbs and concoctions. And whether it was fever, cough or cold, headache we always got cured. I visited the hospital only when I got braces or needed specs.
We were vegetarian. She prepared all the food at home and also ensured that we never ate anything from outside. Fried goodies were eaten, but only on festive days. Food was simple. Not much oil or spices. Curd was not easily available, nor was milk. Ghee was supposed to be given only to elders, for regaining health.
Fast forward 40 years. 2021. I haven’t taken any medicine, not even a pill for a headache since the last 15-20 years as far as I remember. I didn’t consume lot of oil or ghee. I firmly believed that if you avoid packed and processed food, don’t take fried things, consume very little oil, no dairy, you don’t need any medicine.
Then I moved to Delhi. I fed my daughter a lot of ghee as this was freely available.
My daughter suffered from psoriasis since childhood and nothing seemed to help. Finally, one day I attended Dr. Nandita Shah’s seminar in Mumbai along with my daughter and we both turned vegan overnight. Voila, her psoriasis vanished within three months!! She is medication free now. My life changed completely. I studied more about nutrition and the strong conviction about the ineffectual nature of medicines that I carried since childhood thanks to my mother was further reinforced. On 17th February 2021 my now 84 years old mother also turned vegan too! Her sugar levels are improving and blood pressure is in control too thanks to this.
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Boursin
This plant based version of the delightful French herb and garlic soft cheese is easy to make and will always be a hit.
Ingredients
- 200 g or 1 cup raw cashew nuts (soaked for 6 to 8 hours)
- 200 g tofu
- ¼ – ½ cup water
- 1 tsp ground or finely minced garlic
- ½ tsp unrefined salt
- 1 cup finely chopped fresh herbs (basil/tarragon/parsley/dill/mint/spring onion greens/chives)
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- ¼ tsp freshly ground pepper (kali mirch)
Method
Drain and rinse the soaked cashew nuts and place them in a blender. Add ¼ cup water and grind until you get a reasonably smooth paste. Add the tofu, garlic, salt and blend to a thick but creamy spread. Transfer from the blender to a bowl. Add finely minced fresh herbs, ground pepper and fresh lemon juice and mix together. (Never put herbs in the blender/food processor or you will have a green cheese!)
Serve as a dip for vegetable sticks, on bread or in any way that you would use a soft cheese spread
Serves 10
Food for the mind
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Multiple reasons to ditch dairy
Dairy is one of the most misunderstood foods. As children we are instinctively averse to dairy, but since our parents spend hours running behind us with a glass of milk, most of us grow up believing that we need it for survival. Advertisements keep that myth in our minds. Here are some facts about dairy that may help you make the switch.
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1. Dairy is for babies
Every mother produces milk only for her baby. And no animal in nature drinks another animal’s milk. Pigs don’t drink goats milk and monkeys don’t drink elephant milk. We are the only species that drinks milk of another species. When you drink milk you are not only depriving a baby of its birth-right, you also get sick.
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2. Milk contains growth hormones
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Milk is the food for babies to grow rapidly at the time when they need most, to grow. Milk contains powerful growth hormones. Therefore, dairy is one of the biggest contributors to the obesity epidemic that in turn is responsible for many other diseases. Growth hormones also promote cancers.
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3. Milk is high in fat and cholesterol
Like all animal products, milk contains high fat and no fibre. This lethal combination is the major cause of lifestyle diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and even Alzheimers and dementia.
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4. Dairy causes diseases
Since cows are confined close to each other, disease spreads easily. Many bacilli are destroyed by pasteurisation. Tubercle bacilli is an exception though and can survive despite pasteurisation. This is the cause of the new wave of tuberculosis. Dairy is also responsible for mucous formation leading to respiratory diseases.
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5. Dairy contains pus and blood
A cow’s udders are indurated and inflamed as a result of milking continuously and this results in pus and blood in the milk (and a lot of pain to the cow). It’s rare to find milk that does not contain pus.
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6. Dairy contains antibiotics and chemicals
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Thanks to the diseases that arise due to close confinement, the unhygienic conditions and living in their own excreta and the induration of the udders, cows are fed antibiotics daily. These too are excreted in the milk. Also since their feed is usually not organic, this results in the milk containing unwanted chemicals (pesticides and herbicides) and making it a dangerous cocktail. When cows feed on garbage, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s) from plastics, and other unwanted man-made chemicals may find their way into the milk too.
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7. Dairy is often laced with lethal ingredients
In order to keep milk from coagulating during transport in hot conditions in countries like India, urea is added to dairy. This is a fertiliser and can result in kidney diseases.
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8. Dairy is often consumed in its concentrated form
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Paneer, cheese and even sweets often contain concentrated amounts of dairy. For example one gram of cheese is made from 16 grams of milk, or one gram of paneer from 12 grams of milk. This concentration exponentially increases all dairy related problems.
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9. Dairy causes stress
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Stress hormones like adrenaline are abundant in dairy due to the abhorrent conditions in which the cows are kept. The fact that they are artificially inseminated year after year and have their babies taken away from them so their milk can be sold in the market adds to their stress. Cows face a perpetual lockdown. Stress hormones in dairy naturally cause stress in the consumer.
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10. Milk contains hormones
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All our hormones are orchestrated by the pituitary gland. Milk, as the secretion of a female mammal, naturally contains estrogen, progesterone, prolactin, adrenaline, growth hormones, oxytocin as well as all those hormones injected into the cow to force her to produce more milk. These hormones cause hormonal havoc in us resulting in a variety of hormonal diseases such as diabetes, hypothyroid, prostate enlargement, menstrual disturbances, menopausal disturbances, infertility, prostate enlargement, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers.
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11. Dairy milk is a foreign protein to our body.
This along with other animal proteins can be a cause of auto-immune diseases like lupus, multiple sclerosis, ankylosing spondylitis, type-1 diabetes, psoriasis, vitiligo, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, Guillain Barre Syndrome, Graves’ disease, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, vasculitis, myasthenia gravis, Raynaud’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis and more.
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