Pro Nature - Full of Life

Yehi hai right choice baby

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:15:00 +0000

Raising a child well enough for him/her to grow into a non-self-destructing human being is the biggest challenge a parent faces. Among other lifestyle lessons that a parent (hopes to) impart, eating habits comfortably sits within the top 5. And why not? These habits will shape the most important aspect of their life – health.

Very often kids nag, and not because they like to generally make our lives difficult, but that is their way of asking for love and care. And love and care we give…often in the way of bad eating decisions for them! Just consider, how many times you “reward” your children with chocolates or ice creams or just give in to their feet-stomping demands of sweet treats at the grocery stores.

For your child, many lifelong food habits are established between the ages of 6 and 12. And in this day and age of KFC and Mc Donald’s corrective measures have to be a part of everyday life. So here are some tips on how to steer their affinity towards the healthier eating options out there.

Allow your child to eat only when they are hungry. Make sure they eat slowly. The brain takes a good 20 minutes to register that you are full. Eating in a hurry often leads to over-eating. This can be a life-long weight control habit.

Using food to bribe or reward makes the child ignore hunger cues. Buy your child a book or small toy instead of an ice-cream cone when you want to show them you are pleased.

Make sure junk food is clearly categorized as “indulgence” and must be consumed only once in a while.

Drinking milk is the easiest way to build strong bones because it provides both calcium and vitamin D. There are a zillion ways to make milk taste better. Just ensure that you do not add access sugar.

Getting children involved in food choice and preparation is one of the best strategies for helping them eat right.

Take your child shopping for groceries and make sure they are allowed to choose only among healthy options.
Involve your child in cooking healthy meals. Let him make a brown bread sandwich or other easy-to-cook food like chaat. Appreciate the effort and taste to continue the trend.

Kids who eat breakfast take in more of the nutrients they need. Breakfast skippers typically do not make up for the missed opportunity the morning meal provides and also tend to over-eat during other meals.

Hungry kids will eat whatever is available, so stock the kitchen with healthy snacks.

Kids are like soft clay, ready to take up any shape you give. It is entirely up to you to give them the right guidelines. Hence, teach them the importance of healthy eating and let them know how good food can help lead a better life. And yes, pour in some amount of your endurance and patience since parenthood is pretty much synonymous with these two words.

Food Woes

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 05:39:00 +0000

Is there enough food? How do we get it to people? What is its quality? These common questions all concern supply; people spend a lifetime addressing them, and if you closely examine any one, you’re ensnared in a complex web.

Like many professionals, I often succumb to the temptation to work late and eat out with friends. That experience, effortless and pleasurable in anticipation, is usually expensive — even when it’s at a theoretically inexpensive restaurant — and frustrating; more often than not it’s unsatisfying. (Note that this means it’s also sometimes satisfying, which is why I keep doing it; it’s a gamble.)

When I cook, though, everything seems to go right. I shop an average of every two weeks in a supermarket, and make a couple of trips a week to smaller stores. I’m aware that my choices are mostly imperfect, but I rarely conclude that I should make a burger and fries for dinner or provide a pound per person of prison-raised pork served with fruit from 10,000 miles away, followed by a cake full of sugar and artificial ingredients. Yet, for the most part, that describes restaurant food.

This time of year, I’ll buy local greens and local fish and wind up eating half or less of the food I would have if I had eaten out. Dessert only happens if someone else buys or makes it because it’s just too much work.

That’s pretty much it. The investment is minimal: A quick shopping trip takes me a half-hour, including the walk or drive. The time spent eating is relaxing and uninterrupted by the insipid ritual: “Is everything tasting to your liking?” or “You guys O.K.?” It takes 10 minutes to clean up. And not to mention the happiness on the face of my husband because I cooked him a meal.

Compared with a restaurant, the frustrations and annoyances are minimal, the food is not all that bed, unquestionably healthier and more environmentally friendly, and much less expensive.

It’s not that I’m unconcerned about the supply side. I can’t help bugging myself with questions about whether the food I buy is “good” enough: pesticides? Fertilizer? Carbon footprint? Fair pay for farmers?
But that is easily taken care of really. Organic variants actually take care of those queries. And if you are worried about the slightly higher cost then stop cribbing!

Buy things that you feel answer to your standards, and you’ll be a cut above most restaurant food in every category. You’ll know exactly what you’re putting in your mouth and how much of it. You’ll move in the right direction, cooking and eating less meat and junk and more plants.

I recognize that I’m privileged with my cooking skills, though, in fact, I have friends who are better cooks than I am, who have access to better food and who have more leisure. I recognize, too, that there are many people for whom time and money and skills and even access are challenges. The thing, though, is not to discount this argument simply because not everyone is in a position to benefit from it, but rather to use it to benefit those it can, and to create the same possibilities for everyone.

Aur dal daalo

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 06:53:00 +0000

I am sure that our earliest childhood memory is that of our mothers shoving dals down our throats while we fantasized about junk food. Personally, dal is the only left over dish after every meal in my house! But just as I have insisted before, I insist again – our traditions were built on strong foundations that were designed for us to live in harmony with nature and our own bodies. Here is a snapshot of all the goodness a bowl of dal has to offer:

Get more iron: Beans and Lentils are good sources of iron, which is required for the production of hemoglobin in the blood. Iron deficiency can lead to anemia. Combine iron-rich legumes with good sources of Vitamin C (such as oranges, lemon, tomatoes, guava etc) to increases your body's ability to absorb the iron. One cup of beans and lentils provide 30 to 37 percent of the daily value (DV) for iron.

Maintain your weight by reducing food cravings: A research published in 2008 found that people who consumed beans regularly had a 22 percent reduced risk of obesity as compared with people who hadn't regularly eaten beans. The research also found that bean-eaters had a greater probability of having a smaller waist size. According to researchers, the soluble fiber in beans slows down the rate of digestion and this allows the feeling of being full to stay for a longer period of time.

Get More Protein: Legumes are considered as good-quality sources of proteins. When combined with a whole grain such as brown rice, legumes provide protein comparable to that of meat or dairy foods without the high calories or saturated fat found in these foods. One cup of cooked lentils provides around 35 percent of the daily protein requirement, and one cup of cooked beans provides around 30 percent of the daily requirement.

Prevent Birth Defects: A woman who is trying to conceive should consider including sources of folate in her diet. Folate prevents birth defects, and you can get more than 80 percent of your daily folate requirement from one cup of cooked lentils! Beans also contain significant amounts of folate. For example, one cup of cooked kidney beans provides 57 percent of the daily folate requirement.

Bring Down the Risk of Cancer: Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health examined a dietary data of 90,360 women who fell in the age group of 26 to 46 years. The data revealed that the women who ate beans and lentils for at least twice a week had a 25 percent lower risk of suffering from breast cancer than those who ate legumes just once a month. Legumes fight obesity and this way it prevents the development of obesity related cancers. Refined carbs fuel the cancer cells with sugar and when these foods are replaced with legumes, the body would develop the immunity to fight cancer.

Lowers the risk of heart disease: Beans and lentils, being high in soluble fiber, can help lower total cholesterol as well as LDL ("bad") cholesterol. Soluble fibers binds to bile acids (necessary for fat digestion) made by the liver from cholesterol and carry it to intestine for defecation. As a result, the liver must use additional body stores of cholesterol to manufacture new bile acids. A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that people who eat the most fiber, 21 grams per day, had 12 percent less coronary heart disease and 11 percent less cardiovascular disease compared to those eating the least, 5 grams daily.

Now that we are all “grown up” and “independent” we totally have the choice of not choosing dal as part of our meals. But if we did that who is losing out in the end?

The bitter truth

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:06:00 +0000

We often read about the “staple diet” of various regions and marvel at the variety the world has to offer. But one particular food item has crept into the lifestyles of very geography, without us even realizing that it now influences almost every dish we prepare. It’s the new staple of the world, it’s devil’s own – sugar.

Its presence is irrefutable. Be it the morning cuppa or the glass of milk or satisfying a craving, sugar plays the vital ingredient. So addicted we are that we blissfully ignore the perils that come with it: obesity, rheumatism, pyorrhea and the occasional but large bills from the dentist. What is worse, if we analyze sugar as a food, it is little more than a cocktail of chemicals. All its nutrients are sacrificed at the altar of consumerism. And what we get are crystals bathed in sulphur dioxide, lime, phosphoric acid, formic acid, bleaching agents and viscosity reducers to name a few.

All that whiteness makes me suspicious

So what is one to do? We will, under no circumstance, compromise with the taste nor will we give up the traditional yummness that form our early memories. So I googled “substitute for sugar”. Yes, I know what you are thinking. Artificial sweetener was my top bet too. But Google did surprise me, that too pleasantly. The answer it threw at me was jaggery. So I googled jaggery and I stumbled on the following nuggets:

Ancient medical scriptures dating back to the period 2,500 years ago state how jaggery purifies the blood, prevents rheumatic afflictions and disorders of bile and possesses nutritive properties of a high order.

Mahatma Gandhi in 1935 exhorted everyone to put gur in their milk and not refined sugar. Gur has a mild laxative effect. It has calcium, phosphorous, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, absorbic acid and a host of other nutrients.

Jaggery or "Gur" is a pure, wholesome, traditional, unrefined, whole sugar. It contains the natural goodness of minerals and vitamins inherently present in sugarcane juice and this crowns it as one of the most wholesome and healthy sugars in the world. It is rich in vitally important minerals. Magnesium strengthens the nervous system and potassium is critical to conserve the acid balance in the cells. It is very rich in iron and prevents anemia. The natural processing of jaggery requires no chemical treatment but an organic variant can ensure that you totally eliminate it.

Phew! I don’t remember the last time I had such a long list of virtues for anything. But living close to nature does have its perks. It remains only for us to find and recognize the treasures buried in our traditions.

Beauty, indeed, is only skin deep

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:12:00 +0000

India has an undeniable affinity towards all things shiny. If you don’t believe me, check the quantum of revenue generated by gold jewelry in India or the fact that the fairness creams were the only recession proof products in India. Have you noticed how, even when you shop for groceries, you automatically move towards polished and uniform looking products?

As a result all pulses shine, all grains shine, all fruits shine, even vegetables, you guessed it, shine. But that is not how Nature designed it. Pick anything fresh from the field and it will not dazzle your eyes with polished awesomeness. But beauty, indeed, is only skin deep. Today we pick one such unfortunate basket that lost its sheen to the race of superficial beauty – unpolished wheat products.

It is sad that only well-heeled Indians switch to unpolished food when they are on a diet. Few realize that, apart from the lower fat content, there are many compelling reasons to eat this way. Quoting from a story published in The Hindu, a doctor once asked his students, “What was the single most important factor for the health of the nation at the beginning of World War II?” The answer, “Raising the amount of the grain used to make bread flour from 70% to 85%.” His next question was, “Who do you think made the most complaint about it?” The answer was, “The laxative companies.”

In 1880 the English flour mills began to produce a very fine white flour consisting purely of the endosperm of the grain, sans roughage, vitamins and minerals. The introduction of this very white flour and its very white bread was eagerly taken to by the masses of the country, as it was only the well-to-do who had white bread heretofore, it being very expensive to sieve out through fine muslin.

In 1900s, some twenty years after the introduction of this special white flour, there was this interesting new illness, coronary thrombosis, along with constipation, gastric ulcers, diverticulitis, varicose veins, gall-bladder problems and general ill-health. The one section of the community who knew something has changed was the grannies of English society who could not understand why they were now constipated. So worried were they that colonic washout clubs were formed to deal with the problem.

The other wonder product from the family is brown rice. Brown rice basically refers to unmilled and unpolished rice that we used to eat before rice started coming packed almost to our doorstep. Only the outermost layer, the hull, is removed to produce brown rice. This makes the rice retain all the natural nutrients. The most important benefit is that it prevents heart diseases because it tackles obesity, diabetes and cholesterol. Since the bran is never removed, it is also rich in essential oils and also helps maintain insulin levels.

Coming to the laxative properties, it prevents food from just sitting in your gut and letting the poisons and toxins to be produced by unhealthy anaerobic bowel bacteria. If you allow that to happen it can cause illnesses from acute appendicitis to bowel cancer especially of the large intestine and rectum.

Off late we also see a lot of effort to add the leached original goodness back to the products and sell them under “fortified” or “added fibre” categories. But that is, and can never be, as good as the real thing.

Coming back to beauty being skin deep, brown is rice is great for the skin. It is rich in vitamin E and the bran layer contains zinc and magnesium which can make the skin glow. Oh boy, I love irony.

Pop goes the myth

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 06:10:00 +0000

Few things really capture the heart and soul of the movie theater experience like a stranger patting your back every time the hero cracks a joke. In the same ballpark is movie theater popcorn. It's an iconic snack associated with the film-going experience and, when chewing gum are not available, it's the next best thing to buy at a 900 percent markup to keep your hands and mouth busy for the next two hours, provided you're not in that back-patting crowd.

Aah, who needs snow!

Since theaters make the majority of their profits off the concession stand, it's no wonder they need to keep costs down as much as possible, which is why most employees seem to have flies buzzing around their heads, and it's also why butter was long ago sacrificed to the gods of conning.

Lately, most places have taken to calling what they put on popcorn "topping" after word got out that butter hadn't seen the inside of a theater since Citizen Kane. The popcorn is often popped in coconut oil and then bathed in hydrogenated soy bean oil, much the way we imagine any super model’s legs right before the ramp walk.

The new mixture, while packing all that delicious butter flavor, also packs your arteries with heart stopping awfulness, so the cost benefit analysis worked more in favor of the theaters than you, supposing you were planning on staving off a heart attack. A large popcorn with this pseudo-butter has as much saturated fat as eight Big Macs.

Take a good look at what you might lose anytime

If you eat too much microwave popcorn, you can wind up in the hospital with popcorn lung. That's right, the popcorn spilled out of his stomach and filled his lungs.

No, just kidding. The truth is much weirder. The "totally not butter" flavoring in microwave popcorn contains the chemical diacetyl, which creates poisonous fumes that can almost totally kill you if you breathe too much of it.

The effects are mostly seen in popcorn factory workers. In fairness, the man who got it from eating popcorn was eating two bags of microwave popcorn a day, so it seemed inevitable some debilitating illness finally caught up with him.

Do you have the freedom of choice?

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:58:00 +0000

Buying "free range" eggs is one of the easiest ways to feel good as a consumer -- they are at least as readily available as "normal," mass produced eggs from those horrible giant chicken prisons. Hell, they even cost pretty much the same. There's literally no reason not to buy free range.

According to law, the definition of "free range" is that chickens raised for their meat "have access to the outside." OK ... so that's not quite as free as we assumed, and it appears to only apply to chickens raised for their meat. But at least they still have some freedom, what with the outside and all that.

Words have power, and "free range" in its original sense means unfenced and unrestrained. That makes it a powerful phrase that, no matter how smart we are, conjures subconscious images of freedom hens, riding tiny little freedom horses out on the plains, wearing hen-sized cowboy hats and leaving a happy little trail of delicious freedom eggs in their wake. There may be mandolin music.

But the reality is there are absolutely no regulations whatsoever for the use of the term "free range" on anything other than chickens raised for their meat. The bar of chocolate in your hand could be free range for all the government cares.

Freedom redefined

The industry knows this full well and happily makes us lap up the free range myth, even though in reality a free range hen lives in pretty much the same prison as battery cage hen - except its whole life takes place in a prison shower, rather than a cell.

Awareness of the free range myth is slowly increasing, but although a manufacturer that has been pushing his luck a bit too much does get it back from animal rights every once in a while, that doesn't do much to the overall phenomenon. In fact, Europe is set to ban egg production in cage systems come 2012. Shall we too?

And that’s how the cookie crumbles

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:50:00 +0000

Imagine a blueberry muffin.

Even with your freshly gained knowledge that there may or may not be wood pulp in the cake mix, it's pretty impossible not to start salivating at the thought, right? This is largely because of the berries themselves. What's better -- they're so very, very healthy that it's almost wrong for them to taste so good.

Everything is better with blueberries -- that's why they put them in so many foods, cakes, cookies, muffins, you name it. Now that we think of it, there sure seems to be a lot of blueberries in a lot of products. You'd think we'd see more blueberry fields around ...

The Horror:

... not that it would do any good, as the number of blueberries you've eaten within the last year, that have actually come from such a field, is likely pretty close to zero.

I can hear it mocking us

Studies of products that supposedly contain blueberries indicate that many of them didn't originate in nature. All those dangly and chewy and juicy bits of berry are completely artificial, made with different combinations of corn syrup and a little chemist's set worth of food colorings and other chemicals with a whole bunch of numbers and letters in their names.

They do a damn good job of faking it, too -- you need a chemist's set of your own to be able to call the con. You can sort of tell them from the ingredient lists, too, if you know what to look for, although the manufacturers tend to camouflage them under nonesense terms like "blueberry flakes" or "blueberry crunchlets."

There are a number of major differences between the real thing and the Abomination Blueberry: The fake blueberries have the advantages of a longer shelf life and, of course, being cheaper to produce. But they have absolutely none of the health benefits and nutrients of the real thing. This, of course, doesn't stop the manufacturers from riding the Blueberry Health Train all the way to the bank, sticking pictures of fresh berries and other misleading cues all over the product packaging.

And how do they dodge officials? A bunch of products actually contain an unspecified amount of real berries. This way they can legally advertise natural flavors while substituting the vast majority of berries with the artificial ones.

So next time you choose blueberry cheesecake over carrot cake, think again…till of course we find out that the carrot is actually redwood shavings…

How the creative juices flow

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:56:00 +0000

Quick, name the healthiest drink your nearest store has to offer. You said orange juice, didn't you? It's what everybody makes you drink when you get sick. Hell, that thing must be like medicine or something. And the labels are always about health benefits -- the cartons scream "100 percent natural!", "Not from concentrate!" and "No added sugar!"

Bottled divinity

And why not believe them? When it comes to making the stuff, orange juice isn't sausage. You take oranges, you squeeze oranges, you put the result in a carton, with or without pulp. End of story, beginning of deliciousness.

But what if we told you that "freshly squeezed" juice of yours can very well be a year old, and has been subjected to stuff?

The Horror:

Ever wonder why every carton of natural, healthy, 100 percent, not-from-concentrate orange juice manages to taste exactly the same, yet ever so slightly different depending on the brand, despite containing no additives or preservatives whatsoever?

The process indeed starts with the oranges being squeezed, but that's the first and last normal step in the process. The juice is then immediately sealed in giant holding tanks and all the oxygen is removed. That allows the liquid to keep without spoiling for up to a year. That's why they can distribute it year-round, even when oranges aren't in season.

There is just one downside to the process (from the manufacturers' point of view, that is) -- it removes all the taste from the liquid. So, now they're stuck with vats of extremely vintage watery fruit muck that tastes of paper and little else. What's a poor giant beverage company to do? Why, they re-flavor with a carefully constructed mix of chemicals called a flavor pack, which are manufactured by the same fragrance companies that formulate CK One and other perfumes. Then they bottle the orange scented paper water and sell it to you.

And you thought one gulp of this would make your breakfast complete…Sigh.

Pulp fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 05:28:00 +0000

I am now convinced that if there's one thing in the world the processed food industry is dead set against, it's allowing us to actually maintain some level of control over what we eat. Packaged food is anyway not the healthiest option. So I make it a point to read through the nutrition facts and ingredients thoroughly before I pick it up.

If you do it often enough you will see a pattern emerge. And here’s what I found.

We all know about the goodness of fiber and off late there is also a flux of “fiber enriched” processed food products in the market. And every “fiber enriched” product has “cellulose” in it (according to the ingredients). Any guesses what cellulose actually is? C’mon one little guess. No, okay hold on to your seat, it is wood pulp!


That loaf and chopping board have equal quantities of wood

It turns out that cellulose can provide texture to processed foods, so food companies have taken to happily using it as a replacement for such unnecessary and inconveniently expensive ingredients as flour and oil. As the 30 percent cheaper cellulose is edible and non-poisonous, the FDA has no interest for restricting its use -- or, for that matter, the maximum amount of it that food companies can use in a product. It is pretty much everywhere.

But the worst thing about cellulose is not that it's everywhere. The worst thing is that it is not food at all. Cellulose, unlike the actual, normal food items you think you're paying for, is completely indigestible by human beings, and it has no nutritional value to speak of. If a product contains enough of it, you can literally get more nutrients from licking your fingerprints off its wrapper.

What totally escapes me is why the processed food producers strip the original ingredients off all its natural fiber content to eventually add wood pulp to make it fiber enriched? But then just because they are bonkers, thankfully, does not mean that we have to be too.

Mundane is it?

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:36:00 +0000

The last week has been quite a revelation for me. Huffing and puffing up the stairs I realized the extent of my seated digital life. Apart from work, I was pretty content with communicating with friends and family on Facebook, building a network on Facebook, building a city on Facebook and whole lot of other things…on, of course, Facebook.

What was even more fascinating is that I actually went home tired from doing that. I generally slumped myself on the couch and watched TV till the choice was between dragging myself up to make dinner or go hungry. One such day last week I watched the movie Ratatouille.

And it dawned on me…I have always loved cooking. From being restricted to omelets as a kid to whipping up 4 course dinner parties for a maximum of 25, cooking has been therapeutic to say the least. So why did it become a chore? The answer was fairly simple. Because I chose to see cooking as a chore!

If you think of it, cooking can be the most creative thing you do in the day. Combining ingredients to bring out the best flavor, watching the spices crackle in the oil, the aroma that fills the kitchen, all that is left is some good music in the background, and oh heaven! You let out a sigh after everything is in done, be it in anticipation of the accolades or the criticism you will receive. All this is so real and so much better than clicking on icons and pressing buttons.

And you know what, cooking actually helps you develop quite a few skills. I for one, multi-task, organize, meet deadlines, find the next best substitute and extract the most of available resources, all in the name of cooking. (That sentence can actually fit in a corporate scenario).

Talking of corporate scenarios, cooking also has an appraisal system – one that happens within the next 2 hours or so. And the best part, no matter what the result is, your hard work is always appreciated with the most precious gift ever – smiling family members, for real.

Mom was right!

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 06:27:00 +0000

As a kid I remember enjoying seasonal delights that Dad would enthusiastically bring from the local market and Mom would cook with all her heart to put a smile on our faces. But as I grew up seasonal relevance made its journey to the back burner. By the time I was in my late teens Dad would bring cauliflower and carrots well within summer and Mom would cook it broodingly. She said it’s just not right; it doesn’t taste right; it doesn’t feel right.

Today when I walk into a shop/super market (yes, going to mundis is not the first option anymore), I not only see fruits and vegetables from a different season, I also see a substantial supply of them from different countries. Being a foodie I jumped at the options. But the initial euphoria is now clouded with doubt. How does the apple from Australia stay that fresh after travelling half the earth and why do all the apples look like clones of each other?


Cloning has been proved to be harmful for mankind

It is easy to guess that fruits and vegetables in season are much more supportive of not only your health, but also the health of the planet. There is a reason why a certain fruit or vegetable grows at a certain time. It’s nature’s design. That’s when they grow best.

So Mom was not just right about the taste being off the mark, she was right when it came to the “off the mark” logic. Buying locally and seasonally is a lot easier on the wallet. It’s the basic law of supply and demand.

It is tastier because the fruit or vegetable has grown in the environment that is best suited for it to grow. Food loses flavor just as it loses moisture when they are repeatedly held. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about eating five servings a day of flavorless fruits and vegetables and it’s even harder to get your children to be enthusiastic about it.

Eating seasonally also adds variety to your platter all year round. Oh the joys of waiting for Mangos! I think they are that divine because we wait a whole year to feast on them.

And while you munch on seasonal goodness, you can feel happy that in the process you helped the environment restore it freshness, urged farmers to move away from the debt cycles that come from using chemicals and supported healthy environment for the birds and animals. Now is that not a win-win situation?

Organic farming – India's future perfect?

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 05:45:00 +0000

A budding interest in organic food offers farmers soaring incomes and higher yields, but critics say it's not the answer to India's fast-rising food demands.

India's struggling farmers are starting to profit from a budding interest in organic living. Not only are the incomes of organic farmers soaring – by 30% to 200%, according to organic experts – but their yields are rising as the pesticide-poisoned land is repaired through natural farming methods.

Organic farming only took off in the country about seven years ago. Farmers are turning back to organic farming methods for a number of reasons.

First, there's a 10% to 20% premium to be earned by selling organic products abroad and in India's increasingly affluent cities, a move towards healthy living and growing concern over toxic foods and adulteration plaguing the food market.

Second, the cost of pesticides and fertilisers has shot up and the loans farmers need to buy expensive, modified seed varieties are pushing many into a spiral of debt. Crippling debt and the burden of loans are trriggering farmer suicides across the country, particularly in the Vidarabha region of Maharashtra. Organic farming slashes cultivation and input costs by up to 70% due to the use of cheaper, natural products like manure instead of chemicals and fertilisers.

Third, farmers are suffering from the damaging effects of India's green revolution, which ushered in the rampant use of pesticides and fertilisers from the 1960s to ensure bumper yields and curb famine and food shortages. Over the decades, the chemicals have taken a toll on the land and yields are plunging.

Fourth, the farmer actually is getting paid to replenish the soil. When he rotates his crops, and plants leguminous crop, not only does it enrich the soil but the farmer can also sell the harvest and earn money. His field is never idle.


Indian farmer displays organic cabbage in Gujarat. Image courtesy Ghetty Images

Western, modern farming has spoiled agriculture in the country. An overuse of chemicals has

made land acidic and hard, which means it needs even more water to produce, which is costly. Chemicals have killed the biggest civilisation in agriculture – earthworms, which produce the best soil for growth.

Umesh Vishwanath Chaudhari, 35, a farmer in the Jalgaon district in Maharashtra, switched to organic farming seven years ago after experiencing diminishing yields from his 8-hectare (20-acre) plot. He came across a book on organic farming techniques using ancient Vedic science. He started making natural fertilisers and pesticides using ingredients such as cow manure, cow urine, honey and through vermicomposting – the process of using earthworms to generate compost. Since then, his yields and income have risen by 40%, and worms have returned to his soil. He sells lime, custard apple and drumsticks to organic stores in Pune, Mumbai and other cities. He plans to convert another 2 hectares to organic cotton and buy 10 cows to make his own manure, rather than buying it.

Udday Dattatraya Patil, 43, an agriculture graduate, turned to organic farming after his crops were showing a deficiency in feed, leading to rising fertiliser costs. In addition, his banana crop was being wrecked by temperature fluctuations and climate change. Now he has 40 cows and bulls whose manure he can use for fertiliser, as well as vermicompost units. His yields have increased by 20% and income by 30%.

Although he is hailed as a progressive agriculturalist by his fellow villagers, he is the only organic farmer out 3,000 in Chahardi, in Jalgaon district.

Many farmers are reluctant to make the leap because they fear a drop in yields in the initial period; good results tend to show after three years. Moreover, the market is growing by 500% to 1,000% a year, according to some reports, but it only represents 2% of the food market.

Once the awareness increases, organic agriculturalists believe more farmers will join the movement because it's favourable to small farmers. They already have the cows and buffalos needed to recycle biomass at the farm level, which is, essentially, the foundation of organic farming.

While critics argue that organic farming is not the answer to India's rising food demands, those in favour say it's the only sustainable way out for impoverished farmers.

No pain, no gain

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 06:45:00 +0000

Due to the cruel laws of anatomy, losing weight requires two things:

1. Pain

2. Hunger

This is due to a few fairly simple facts about your body. Your body wants to store fat, because through most of human history, food was scarce and in times of plenty it wants to store up for when supplies are short.

This is a process your body invented to keep you alive, over centuries of living in a world that did not have fast food. Any time you try to stop or undo that process, your body will send unpleasant sensations to your brain, because it thinks you're setting youself up to starve to death.

To lose weight, you must endure those unpleasant sensations. There is no shortcut.

For instance, you can exercise to the point that your body will run out of the ready fuel in your system, at which point it will reluctantly dip into its fat reserves and burn them. You will experience fatigue and pain when this happens. This is your body punishing you for using the fat it has stored up. It doesn't want to use it. Your body was saving it for an emergency.

You can also restrict the amount of food coming into your system so that your body is forced to go through that same fat-burning process, but this time your body will punish you by making you feel hungry, or cravings for fattier foods that will let it replenish those fat reserves on your thighs and belly and everywhere else.

Any pill or cream that claims it can "burn fat" while you sit on the sofa, or exercise machine that claims to make exercise "easy" or "effortless" is a scam to steal your money.

There have also been numerous products put on the market intended to suppress hunger. But turning off one of the fundamental processes that keeps you alive (i.e. your brain alerting you that you need to eat) is not an easy thing, and time and time again those pills turn out to be dangerous or even deadly.

Now, most of the weight loss supplements you see at your grocer store now are just mild appetite suppressants, usually just packed full of caffeine or another stimulant, since the nervous, jittery, mildly sick feeling they induce does tend to kill your hunger. Just note that it is only replacing one unpleasant sensation with another (the body does not give up easily). Occasionally they will package these supplements with "all natural" ingredients on the label (such as "Hoodia" or "Green Tea Extract").

So is the situation hopeless?

Not at all. Most people have a higher tolerance for physical suffering than they think. And it is temporary; exercise gets easier as muscles get stronger (though at the point it becomes TOO easy, it's time to increase what you're doing) and your system WILL adjust to getting less food.

Also, you can reduce the suffering that will come with weight loss by losing the weight slowly - your body won't kick and scream as much about losing one pound a month as it will if you are trying to lose five pounds a week Biggest Loser-style. It's impatience that makes most diets fail.

The even better news?

Weight loss doesn't cost a dime.

Exercise can be done on the floor - mankind was getting exercise long before any machines had

been invented for the purpose. Google around for the best techniques. Diet is just a matter of not eating the foods you already know you shouldn't be eating. Both of these will cause you some mild suffering. Enduring that suffering is the only thing between you and being thin.

Good luck.

What is the deal with Organic?

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 04:35:00 +0000

This blog is in response to some very valid questions asked by one of our Facebook page users and consumers, Bhuvana Adishankar. We are certain that the questions she has asked do rear their heads in the mind of every consumer considering Pro Nature Organic as an option. So here are the answers:

Question: Who certifies and at what stages of cultivation/processing?

Answer: There are a host of organic certification bodies in India. You can find the list on http://www.apeda.gov.in/apedawebsite/index.asp . Pro Nature is certified by IMO control, which is one of the leading certification bodies globally headquartered in Switzerland.

Pro Nature procures from only certified organic farms. These farms are regularly monitored and checked by their respective certification bodies to authenticate their organic status. Each of the transaction between Pro Nature and certified organic farms are monitored by IMO to preserve the organic status. Apart from that, IMO conducts annual audits with Pro Nature and the certificate is renewed only after due diligence and verification.

Question: How are farmers able to grow without chemicals/pesticides/fertilisers in this day of polluted environment and less immunity even for plants?

Answer: Organic farming was how farming was always meant to be. It is only after population explosion that the farmers had to increase the yield per harvest to meet the gap in the supply and the demand of food products. And using chemicals/pesticides would help them achieve that.

Coming back to organic farming, organic food products can be grown only in areas that are naturally suited for the crop. For example weather and soil condition in Kerala is the best for growing spices like cloves, cardamom, pepper etc. Thus the soil does not need additional treatment to yield the best of these.

For added authenticity any organic farm is required to have a buffer zone around it to stop cross contamination from the non-organic farms. Also for a farm to get an organic certification, it has to go through a minimum of 3 years of conversion period. These three years are required for the soil to recuperate from the chemical treatment, and lose all traces of chemicals. It is only after this that the farms are certified.

However, any farmer that grows organically is exposed to the natural risks involved in organic farming.

Question: What happens when any organically grown crop gets an attack of pests/insects, etc? How is it tackled?

Answer: The crop has to be discarded. Since the farmers cannot use chemicals to kill pests and insects they are extra vigilant to ensure that a pest/insect attack does not happen in the first place. This is also what makes organic farming very labour intensive.

Question: Why should organic food be expensive? Is it because of the lower volumes; higher profit; or is the cost of all input resources being higher?

Answer: This is the most frequently asked and the most relevant question. Organic food should not have to be expensive; it is expensive in the current scenario for a laundry list of reasons. In its journey from the farm to the store organic food gathers expenses in every step.

At the farm level: Organic farming is extremely labour intensive. As we have discussed earlier, a farmer cannot use chemical fertilizers/pesticides to increase crop productivity or to guard the crop from insect/pest attack. He has to manually; make compost for the soil, remove weed, control pest/insect infestation and even water the fields. This adds to the labour cost associated with the harvest. In addition to that the farmer is taking more risks. He is completely exposed and vulnerable to the forces of nature. And not to forget, the cost of the organic certification for the farm. Pro Nature pays a premium to the organic farmers for all these. That is the first level where organic food products get costlier than regular ones.

Storage: Chemical fumigation is not allowed for organic products. Organic food needs to be stored in cold storage or in vacuum to prevent infestations. These methods of storage are a lot more expensive than regular warehousing. That adds the second layer of cost.

During transport: Since the volume of organic food products is minuscule compared to regular food products the per unit cost of transportation is significantly higher. Pro Nature pays a higher cost per kilo of organic food transported. This is the third cost addition to organic food products.

At the retail outlet: Since the demand for organic is lower than regular food products, organic items tend to move out at a slower pace. This means more occupied shelf space for the retailer. The retailers thus ask for a higher margin to even keep Pro Nature products. This adds another layer to the final cost of the product.

These are the key elements that add to the overall cost of organic food. However, as the volumes for organic grow, these cost factors will reduce and we will be able to bridge the gap between the cost of organic and regular food.

We hope we have been able to answer all the questions. Please feel free to post as many questions as you want in the comment section or on our Facebook page.

Are you being a smart shopper, the natural claim.

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 05:12:00 +0000

In our quest to educate the common shopper about the marketing mumbo jumbo that mean nothing, here is the second of the series on “Are you being a smart shopper?”

Marketing claim: All Natural!

After a lifetime of eating, no words mean less to me than "all natural." Bottled water claims to be 100% NATURAL* CALORIE-FREE. Why did anyone speculate that I'd think differently? Was there a conspiracy going around that their product was bottled android sweat? Outside of a hydrogen fuel cell, where does one even find unnatural water?

On that same bottle of what I assume was non-voodoo water, I searched for the asterisk referred to by "100% NATURAL*" and it led to the explanation, "*100% Natural Ingredients." Oh, ingredients. I thought water is an ingredient. What ingredients would water need, apart from Hydrogen and Oxygen of course? Then why do I need to be told that both Hydrogen and Oxygen are naturally occurring substances? Wait, is there an unnatural version of the two!?

Marketers, you know, we have kinda evolved from this.

Common sense should tell us that “natural” is anything that occurs naturally (DUH). If food scientist could prove that cat urine can add a zing to a certain flavor without serious health impacts, it can be totally labeled “natural”.

Here’s the funny part, the FDA doesn't even define the word "natural," so it's used by a variety of food manufacturers in an effort to imply their products are somehow better for us. We've seen it on everything from potato chips to cereal boxes. The USDA, on the other hand, allows meat and poultry to be labeled "natural" if they don't include artificial colors or ingredients, and are not more than "minimally processed." But the rest of the food supply's definition of natural is up for grabs.

There have been instances when yeast has been treated with MSG and called “all natural” because the company just chose not to mention the MSG bit. In fact a few rather well known companies have had to call it quits with the marketing jargon. It is easy to identify when the companies are faking it. Corn syrup, and partially hydrogenated soybean oil are the regular suspects that feature on “all natural” ingredient list.

Of all the products meaninglessly described as "all natural," I think I have the most problem with fruit juice. What loathsome lack of ethics would allow someone to make synthetic fruit juice? And how in the world would it be easier than making it the regular way? Do you hold a jar under the farmer while he jogs? Do you extract from a dumpster outside a Chinese restaurant? Any factory worker trying to squeeze will tell you: artificial fruit juice is more trouble than it's worth.

The consumers are also to be blamed. If we want fruit juice, and we insist on it being “all natural”, what stops us from making it at home? We look for convenience (a little too much in fact) and then we crib that companies take us for granted. If you want it your way, then make it your way. If enough number of consumers wake up to it companies are bound to notice it.

Are you being a smart shopper?

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 05:30:00 +0000

I sometimes feel that marketers are no longer being serious. For some reason they assume that consumers are morons and are very satisfied with their “duh” marketing initiatives.

I sense a requirement for an explanation here: Duh Marketing is when a product makes a claim so obvious that it's inconceivable why you thought otherwise. Like an energy bar that "Helps Satisfy Appetite!" or a fruit juice that "Contains 100% Daily Value of Vitamin C per serving!" Did you know that 100% DV of Vitamin C is so little that it's the bare minimum to avoid scurvy? If you accidentally drop a grapefruit in a corn syrup plant you'll contaminate everything with 100% DV of Vitamin C per serving.

Am I screaming loud enough? Will they believe me?

In the interest to save ourselves from spontaneous combustion out of shame, I have decided to deconstruct the claims plastered all over your shopping experience. Here’s the first of the series.

Marketing claim: Real

A lot of food claims to be real, but it's never really made clear what the alternative to that is. Or, for that matter, what is “unreal” food? For example, if you read the ingredients on a jar of mayonnaise and a jar of REAL mayonnaise, you'll see they're exactly the same. If there's any difference at all it's usually that "fake" mayonnaise contains modified corn starch and xanthan gum - two thickening additives with the nutritional value of sawdust.

"Real" has very little meaning in food. You can say a cat food has REAL chicken flavor because your cat doesn't know how to call you a liar. But sometimes "real" on a food implies actual legal classification.

For example, on a box of cookies, the words "real chocolate" appears. A quick check of the real chocolate ingredients, and I see that it's made of five things, no one knows what two of them are, and chocolate isn't first.

From the FDA's perspective, "real chocolate" means a candy with actual cocoa butter in it, the thing that gives it its creamy texture and a melting temperature of human mouth. This doesn't quite add up either, since biting into the chocolate chip gave me dental expenses and it had the texture of an ancient brick.


And with that we can launch our dental care division

Another example with “real” claims will be instant soups and noodles with the promise of real chicken, vegetables so on and so forth. I do not deny the fact that the chicken or vegetable they add to the soups were real to begin with.

But then they went through the process of industrial food drying to prevent them from rotting in the packet you take home. Again there is nothing wrong with food drying as a process per say. But most of the industrial food drying uses additives and preservatives, the most dubious being sulfur.

Sulfur is used to preserve the color of some dried foods, like apricots. Fumes from burning sulfur or gaseous sulfur dioxide penetrate the surfaces of foods before they are dried. This adds more chemicals to our already jeopardized lives. And does the term sulfur poisoning ring a bell?

Hate to break the news but, yes, everyone out there is hell bent on conning us. They are probably bored of making better products and have settled for glossy claims. You know after writing this I do see why marketers take us for a ride. Why do you want to look for anything “real” in what you eat directly from a plastic pack anyway? I mean how plastic! If you want “real” then cook it yourself, use the freshest of the ingredients. And if you really want “real” then use organic!

4 bizarre food additives that you consume everyday

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 05:09:00 +0000

Deciphering food labels is tricky business. They're filled with lots of multisyllabic words that border on being impossible to pronounce, chemicals that sound like they could kill you just by touching them, and much, much worse. Read on, unless you've eaten recently ...

#4
Shellac

Most everyone is familiar with shellac as a wood-finishing product. It's often used to give furniture, guitars and even AK-47's that special shine. But did you know it is also commonly used as a food additive? Yep, that's why those lozenges you gorge on are so shiny.

But what exactly is shellac?

Shellac is derived from the excretions of the Kerria lacca insect.

The Kerria lacca uses the sticky excretion as a means to stick to the trees on which it lives. Candy makers use it to make those treats you love so much shiny and beautiful.

Before some health nut out there pipes up to tell us they don't eat candy, we'd like to point out that, during the cleaning process, apples lose their natural shine. Care to guess how it's restored?

#3
Bone Char

Some things are not as they seem. That sugar you put on your cereal in the morning isn't really white. Or at least it doesn't start out that way.

When it starts its sweet, delicious life, sugar is brown--a color deemed to be "undesirable" by the sugar industry. Don't be such racialists, sugar industry! To make the product white, sugar derived from sugar cane goes through a ... different process.

Most sugar whitening processes use bone char to filter impurities from the sugar. Bone char is delightfully produced using the bones of cows that have died from "natural causes," like when cows forget to wear a helmet when riding their motorcycles.

The bones are bleached in the sun and sold to marketers who then sell them to the sugar industry after they've been used by the gelatin industry. What the gelatin industry does with the bones, we don't want to know.

We don't know by what alchemy this method purifies the sugar, we're certainly no scientists. But when you tell us that your purification method involves the ground-up bones of a sacrificed animal, well, we're just going to assume Satan is involved.

#2
Carmine

Carmine can also be identified on food labels as Crimson Lake, Cochineal, Natural Red 4, C.I. 75470 or E120. We mention that because we're guessing you'll want to check for it in the future after reading this.

Carmine is made, literally, from ground-up cochineal insects, which is just a more harrowing way of saying mashed red beetles. Because you're dying to know more, the insects are killed by exposure to heat or immersion in hot water and then dried. Because the abdomen region that houses the fertilized eggs contains the most carmine, it is separated from the rest of the body, ground into a powder and cooked at high temperatures to extract the maximum amount of color.

But the carmine terror doesn't end there. Food manufacturers are well aware that word has gotten out about exactly what carmine is and that people are less than impressed about it. So a number of crafty manufacturers have resorted to labeling it not as carmine, but instead as "natural color," thereby guaranteeing you'll never really know for sure if your cherry ice cream contains the USDA recommended amount of creepy crawlers.

Nice. Hey, speaking of that ...

#1
Natural Flavor

When it comes to food, most of us get nervous when people are intentionally vague. So when you see that a label has included "natural flavor," you should be equally alarmed. If you're thinking the "natural flavor" in your orange candy must obviously come from oranges, think again.

The problem is natural flavor can, literally, be anything that isn't man made. One potentially disturbing example of natural flavor gone bad comes from, where else, McDonald's. Back in 1990, amid constant public outcry about the amount of cholesterol in their French fries, McDonald's started using pure vegetable oil in their fryers.

Wait, what were they using before? Why, beef lard. When they stopped using it, and McDonald's realized fried potatoes don't taste as good without some molten beef added, it was "natural flavor" to the rescue.

When vegetarian groups demanded to know what the mystery flavor was, company reps would only say it was "animal derived."

Hey, nothing unnatural about that!

5 awfully expensive foods that were once cheap

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 06:56:00 +0000

So your first anniversary is just around the corner and your friends are bugging you for a treat. Going through the recommended options you suddenly realise that fine dinning restaurants con you off your hard earned money for no rhyme or reason. But you can cheer yourself up with the knowledge that many foods that we now consider to be classy and/or expensive were common man's least favourite option for supper. Your future does look better.

#5
Lobster

It's no surprise that lobster didn't have much of a reputation. It is, literally, a sea insect. The lobster belongs to the same animal group as both the spider and the common bug, which should be your first clue. They were initially thought of as giant hassles that got in the way when fishermen were fishing for, you know, fish.

Then how did it get so fancy?

Somebody went and invented the railroad. Soon, rich people, who were painfully unaware of what was cool, were tricked into buying the sea insects. But after tasting them, they realised that they must have discovered the long-lost gatekeeper for butter.


Come to mama

#4
Oysters

The oyster is the cousin of snail, nature's glue stick. Oyster also hang out with, and look like, rocks: further proof that giving in to peer pressure is an important survival technique.

Furthermore, in the olden days, eating one required a hell lot of effort. If you succeeded in prying them off of rock without just giving up, you still had to open it. So you can see why the abundance of oysters in the 19th century led to their being mostly eaten by the working poor in the U.S. and the U.K. (also they are not very nutritious).

Then how did it get so fancy?

The industrial age brought a population boom and many, many oysters were eaten and killed, driving up price and demand, and therefore catching the interest of rich people.

To fix this problem, foreign oysters were brought in to replenish the population. Unfortunately, 19th century medical science was still in its Flinstone's car stage, and nobody thought to point out that the local and foreign oysters might carry diseases that the other might not be immune to, leading to tons of oysters becoming rocks for real.

Thus, oysters were made permanently scarce and pricey proving that rich people will spend money on anything, if doing so means that you can't have it.

#3
Foie Gras

Foie gras goes back to ancient Egyptian times, when man discovered that a 10% larger liver of a really, really fattened goose was a lovely primeval combination of tasty and gross.

The dish almost died out in the Middle Ages, when most people were chiefly concerned with trying to stay away from the burning piles of plague victims. Geese were probably able to stop having nightmares about waking up in bathtubs full of ice.

Then how did it get so fancy?

The Renaissance brought back interest in things other than just conquering people, which meant that royals were getting back to the business of conquering their arteries. People travelled to the Jewish ghettos in Rome to buy lobes of foie gras; these lobes found their way in to the kitchens of the royals, who were getting frustrated waiting for the deep fried bacon to be invented.

Then, word got around that foie gras was awesome, the French started putting it in everything and charging $10 an ounce.

#2
Polenta

Polenta is basically gruel. But Polenta is gruel made from corn. Much like gruel, working class families in Italy and Latin America largely depended on this corn mash, which can take an upwards of three hours to cook from scratch, has to be stirred constantly and tastes like something you'd feed to cattle.

Then how did it get so fancy?

Celebrity chefs! Fairly recently, polenta went from being the dish that every rags-to-riches person thought they'd never had to eat again, to the dish that is costing them $25 in a restaurant run by the only person left on earth not shy of wearing Crocs, Mario Batali.

His fine dining restaurant even did an all-polenta meal. But make no mistake, fine dining polenta is mostly still plain old peasant polenta that is spruced up for the rich and famous. The Food Network's Rocco DiSpirito even has a special recipe for polenta in which the only special ingredient is that Rocco DiSpirito is telling you about it.

#1
Sushi


Fishtravaganza

The idea behind sushi is that you've got fish, plus stuff wrapped around it to preserve the fish. The fermentation of the rice keeps the fish from giving you varied types of illness. So originally sushi followed the formula of fish = "yum"; rice = "silica packet".

Back then the boozy, fermented rice was discarded, presumably because they were already very busy with all the opium. Then a 17th century Japanese doctor, Matsumoto Yoshiichi, hit upon the idea of adding vineger to the rice to make it an edible part of the dish.

Like most Japanese things, sushi eventually became pocket-sized. Sushi's portability, cheapness, as well as the allure of eating both a food and its wrapper at the same time turned sushi into the hot dog of the Japanese Edo period. The popular sushi street stalls were the original fast food joints.

Then how did it get so fancy?

Post WWII, sushi arrived in the U.S. with the word "exotic" attached to it.

Now there are sushi restaurants that charge up to $400 a meal (before booze) with a straight face. Masaharu Morimoto, writes in his cookbooks about the short, specific time limits he has for eating pieces of sushi.

This seems reasonable until you remember, this is like a century from now reading a celebrity chef talking about how he can only eat his chicken McNuggets exactly 236 seconds after they have left the fryer.

Are you going organic for the right reasons?

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 05:46:00 +0000

It is great to see that a large number of people are now opting for organic. But what we also see is a trend in the way organic consumers are perceived by the non-organic consumers (we will now refer to them as non-believers, just for the kicks). Non-believers are probably running out of excuses and so they turn to the age old “grapes are sour” syndrome. And here is what they tell themselves whenever they see a happy believer.

They classify you in to the:

The Do-Gooder

For them the Do-Gooder, buying organic food is like being a tiny, lame super hero with a wallet. They jeer at the idea that your buying organic lends support to the humane treatment of animals, conservation of healthy soil, and sustaining a healthy environment. They are also in denial of the fact that buying "conventional food" means participating in the problems associated with it, like pesticides running into rivers and lakes, or the creation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains from animals consuming daily antibiotic-infused feed. They do not want to accept that you are right and dismiss you as someone with a “holier than thou” attitude.

The Blessed Rich

They not only associate the consumption of organic with only the rich and famous but are irrevocably convinced that organic is expensive because some companies want to con us out of our monies, just because they have nothing else to do. They honestly believe that occasionally spending a few grand or more on expensive restaurants, expensive clothes & accessories and/or expensive holidays is so much cheaper that going organic. And you are just showing off your wealth. Oh and did I also mention that they believe all organic consumers own a Ferrari or two.

The Health Junkie

According to the non-believers if you do yoga, have treadmills at home, run the marathon (they are generally irritated with marathons because it obstructed them on their way to KFC), then naturally you eat organic! They can’t understand why you like reading health tips or trivia on how even trace elements of chemicals can harm you. They will give you typical excuses like, “I am very happy the way I am”, “It’s hereditary, not my fault” or ‘I’ll look really out of place in the family photo”. They smoke because they think they will give cigarettes cancer. Actually to sum it up, your inner peace makes them feel fat.

The Afraid. The Very Afraid.

Chemicals are generally scary. But the non-believers imagine you picturing a barrel of fertilizer with a "do not ingest" warning, and laugh at your lack of guts to challenge the might of chemicals. But most non-believers don’t want to admit that they are aware of its long term effects. Of course they know that we as a species were never designed to ingest chemicals that do not occur naturally. Their voice booms through the room when they tell their children about their herculean capacity of digestion and smirk at the thought of your chest hair committing suicide at the sight of their gastronomic strength.

So now you know what they are thinking. I am rather convinced that no one really chooses to go organic because they belong to a certain stereotype. They choose it because they want to. It tastes better, it makes you more active and it allows you to indulge when your heart calls for it. So don’t bother what the world thinks and just enjoy what nature has to offer.

6 Ingredients in Everyday Cosmetics (that you don’t want to know about)

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:45:00 +0000

From time immemorial, mankind (mostly womankind) has not refrained from applying anything on their face to enhance their skin deep beauty and appeal. But have you ever stopped to think what’s in that perfume or that moisturizer or that shaving cream? Aren't you just a little bit curious? Besides, how bad can it be?

#6

Lanolin aka grease from animal fur

Lanolin: it sounds soft and comforting, like the kind of fluffy material you'd use to protect a grazed knee. But lanolin is, in reality, the kind of substance you'd normally like to keep several miles away from your mouth if possible.

Why? Think back to the last time you went a few days without washing your hair, and try to remember the grease that built up. That sticky substance is sebum, which is made from the delightful recipe of wax and the remains of dead fat-producing cells.

Now, imagine a sheep in all its woolen finery going through a similar experience, except rather than having a few bath-free days, we're probably heading towards a bath-free year, and its oil-soaked coat hasn't been cut in that entire time.

This is lanolin, the greasy stuff secreted by wool-bearing mammals to help shed water from their coats, squeezed from their harvested wool and bucketed for many uses, including shoe polish, barnacle repellents and rust-proof coatings. Oh, and also you smear it on your face. In fact, if you've ever used lipstick, lanolin is the stuff that makes it greasy and sticky. Is it bad for you? We're not saying that. We're just saying it's gross.

You Might Have it in Your...

Shaving cream, lotions, skin creams, shampoo, make-up removers, a bucket-load of lipsticks.

#5

Squalene aka shark liver oil

If you're a girl and, like most of our readers, have been alive for more than two years, there's a good chance you've had shark liver juice on multiple parts of your body. There are some important benefits of squalene that hold a huge appeal to the cosmetics industry: It's easily absorbed into the skin without leaving a greasy residue; it combines well with other oils; and it is recognized as improving the appearance of skin. For this reason, it is the ideal ingredient for use in all sorts of products from lip balm to sunscreen. The most common use appears to be in facial moisturizer.

(Writer ponders) It kind of puts Jaws in a new light, when you realize the sunbathers on the beach were smearing the guts of the shark's buddies all over their skin.

You Might Have it in Your...

Moisturizers, sunscreen, eye make-up, lipstick and bath oils

Ambergris aka whale vomit

Let's say you're a whale. And like every other whale in the ocean, you fancy eating some squid every now and again. So you do, even though you know full well that the tasty squid has a sharp beak that's going to cut your insides up. But it's OK, because your belly produces something called ambergris, a waxy oil that protects your insides from sharp beaks and whatnot.

Now let's imagine that your ambergris has been building up for a while now, and it's time to get rid of it. Now here's the fun part: Somewhere a human is going to pick up your oily stomach excrement and shout for joy, because guess what? That thing is worth as much as $20 per gram. People throughout history have used it as food flavoring, an aphrodisiac and incense, but these days you have it lurking in your bottles of perfume.

You Might Have it in Your...

You know it by now, Fancy perfume.

#3

Diatomaceous Earth aka dead algae

Diatomaceous earth (which we shall hereby call it DE because it's a lot easier to type) is the fossilized remains of single-celled algae called diatoms. And what's so disgusting about that? Well, these are the same little blighters responsible for making your fish tank slimy. Over time, nature forced them together so tightly they formed a sedimentary rock known as diatomite. The dead algae rock is recognized primarily for its abrasive nature.

Chances are if you've ever used an exfoliating body scrub, you've actually spent time rubbing dead fish tank algae all over yourself. Whilst DE is known to be damaging to some creatures, the grains are too small to do any cutting-based damage to humans, and are still rough enough to remove those pesky, dead skin cells that build up over time.

You Might Have it in Your...

Acne treatments, facial cleanser, exfoliators

Guanine aka Fish Scales

Guanine shows up on product labels as CI 75170, or to give the more beautiful label bestowed on it, natural pearl essence. Hey, that doesn't sound so bad. It comes from pearls, right?

Wrong. Natural pearl essence actually is a by-product of one of the smelliest industries we know. Put all thoughts of oysters out of your mind because natural pearl essence is actually made by processing the scraped-off scales of dead fish and suspending them in alcohol.

While having nothing to do with pearls, this derivative of guanine does have a similar iridescence to oyster jewels, so it is frequently used in the cosmetics industry to add a certain luster to their products.

So, if you've ever used a colored polish to brighten up the bitten stumps called nails found at the end of your fingers, the chances are you've spent time brushing dead fish scales over your hands, because natural pearl essence is a favored ingredient in a ton of nail polishes.

You Might Have it in Your...

Shampoo, nail polish and other personal products

Cholesterol

Yes, we are talking about that naturally occurring waxy substance responsible for clogging up your arteries. Which is why we're constantly told it's bad for us. No points to you for guessing, you or someone you love has smeared this on your face at some point.

You see, cholesterol is found in another important place: your skin. It is one of the components in the uppermost layer of your skin where it helps to retain moisture while protecting the lower layers from exposure to the elements. Thanks to its skin conditioning and emollient properties, cholesterol is an ideal ingredient for helping the skin retain moisture, which in turn helps to smooth out any wrinkles that have had the audacity to appear.

You Might Have it in Your...

Face creams, moisturizer.

So much for looking your best. It’s not just the beauty industry that is laughing at us, but so is divinity. We often under estimate what we already have. Nature has given us enough. Drink lots of water, sweat it out, eat food the way it is meant to be (without chemicals and pesticides) and balance your diet. These are oft-neglected, sure-shot ways of turning heads at parties or wherever you hang out.

5 ways Nature is better at taking care of itself (than depending on us)

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:01:00 +0000

Nature doesn't take punches like she used to. Nearly every environmental disaster over the past century has been our fault and it's easy to assume that we've recklessly forced the entire planet down a path of destruction. But every once in a while, Mother Nature surprises us with her resiliency, Wolverine-like healing abilities and willingness to step in and clean up our mess when we prove ourselves incompetent.

The Chernobyl fungus that eats radiation

Most of you reading this article have heard of the Chernobyl disaster, reckless experimentation and negligence that led to the worst nuclear plant disaster in history. It irradiated a huge area around the plant and left the neighboring town of Pripyat a nick name – The Ghost Town.

But even in this area, life prevails. Inside the ominous plant, mushrooms are happily feasting on radiation. That's right: There is life inside the reactor of Chernobyl. And it eats radiation. This radiotropic fungus has adapted to turn gamma radiation into food -- it's not the only organism that can absorb radiation, but it is by far the best at it.

The fungus' radiation-eating properties obviously piqued scientists interests since it could help radically reduce radiation levels in contaminated areas. But there's also another reason science wants to take a closer look at the Chernobyl mushroom: The scientists are looking at ways to use the radiation absorbing fungus as food. This could double as a way to combat high-radiation environments while simultaneously growing huge crops of edible mushrooms, which would come really handy in the event of nuclear disasters.

The heavy metal Superworms that feast on poisonous metals

Back in 2008, a group of U.K. scientists were collecting worms they found in landfills because they were curious how they were digesting the garbage, and because being a scientist sometimes means getting dirty. Under the microscope, these worms were far from ordinary. They ate things that would kill ordinary earthworms. They ate metal! The highly poisonous heavy metals found in abandoned mining sites such as lead, zinc, copper and even arsenic.

And the best part? They use only the worst poisons in these metals for sustenance and they defecate a cleaner, virtually poison free version of the metal. The purifying effect of the worms is such that the soil they produce can actually sustain plant life; single-handedly bringing entire areas back to life.

Also, this is not just one mutant variety of worms -- it looks like there are three separate species that have attained this poison-eating ability, so it is not at all impossible that the all of wormkind has had enough of our uselessness and decided to roll up their sleeves to fix everything themselves.

Bacteria that eats poison and makes electricity

Quick, what's the first thing that comes in your mind when we say "bacteria"? If there's even one amongst you who answered that question with "electricity," then chances are you're either lying or are Charles Milliken of the Medical University of South Carolina.

Charles and his colleague, Harold May, are microbiologists with a rather interesting feather in their matching scientist caps: They have found a form of bacteria that is able to generate electricity. The bacteria in question is a member of a genus known as Desulfitobacterium, and although bacteria has proven before its ability to produce small amounts of electricity, this genus of bacteria apparently has never really applied itself. We have no idea why it has decided to make electricity now.

Presumably it just saw an opportunity to be helpful and give us something in return since we keep giving it all those delicious bleaches, pesticides and chemicals to absorb; the Desulfitobacterium makes its electricity as a by-product of making toxic waste harmless.

We're not talking about barely measurable sparks here -- the research has only begun, but already the two scientists have studied batches that are capable of continuously generating electricity at levels that could be used to operate small electronic devices. .

The Gulf of Mexico microbe that eats oil slicks

For those of you who don't remember much of 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was one of the hottest topics and biggest disasters of the year. For three agonizing months, the oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, while the world watched in horror and the BP management seemingly spent their time figuring their physical and mental pain threshold.

The spill ruined the Gulf of Mexico up thoroughly and the sheer insane amount of oil (205.8 million gallons!) that leaked into the ocean made the Exxon Valdez disaster seem like the oil stain in somebody's driveway. Then, two weeks after the plugging of the BP spill, we started getting reports that said that half of the oil was ... gone.

Now, science has long been aware of oil-eating bacteria. Specialized germs have evolved to get their nutrition from underwater oil leaks that happen all the time due to sea bottom earthquakes. Some scientists had even stepped forward with the theory that the BP spill may cause a feeding frenzy among them (the bacteria, not the scientists). But what came as a complete surprise to everyone involved was the speed at which they slurped up the oil. Some of the disappeared oil ended up on the seafloor, sure, but, with time, the bacteria will likely eat that, too.

The spill still messed up the coastline, possibly forever, but it's nice to see nature stepping in like a mad parent to help us clean up the horrific mess we made.

The E. Coli bacterium that poops biofuel

Have you ever eaten cheap takeout or fast food, only to spend the rest of the night sobbing between explosive bouts of diarrhea and puking? Chances are, you made acquaintances with Escherichia coli, or E.coli bacteria.

Some types of E.coli are potentially lethal, although it usually settles for giving you the pains and keeping the giggles for itself. But E.coli gets a bad reputation. The good kind of E.coli actually is a big part of the ecosystem of your gut, happily living in your intestines and helping to keep that whole system working. So maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that it might help save the world.

E.coli itself is a living organism, and as such it has to eat too. It can metabolize a number of energy sources, but it has a real craving for only one -- namely, glucose. And why not? Who doesn't love sugar? Now, scientists have been interested in glucose for a long time, particularly in its ability to convert to biofuel. And, as it turns out, one of the stranger but potentially easy ways of achieving this conversion is through the digestion of bacteria.

Currently, E.coli bacteria are being bioengineered to eat their preferred junk food just like before -- but, in a delicious twist of fate, now it's their turn to crap. And what they give out is totally renewable biofuel.

So we now know that Mother Nature is totally capable of asking us to take a hike. We have seen her fury and her care. In fact we are the only species that is hell bent on inviting disaster and disrupt the “Circle of life”. She provides us for what we need, but we fail her every time we ask her to provide for our greed.

Be the coolest Mom on earth

noreply@blogger.com (Pro Nature Organic Foods) — Thu, 26 May 2011 06:27:00 +0000

Being a mom is the toughest job on this planet. There's nothing like the love surge of a full-body hug or the amazed pride you feel when your toddler takes its first steps! But all this comes with those inevitable pains of feeling exasperated, unnerved, or just surprised. You're ready and willing to do anything in the world to make your child safe and happy. But you see your charm and control slipping away with the growing years.

Going through your child’s adolescence years can be stressful (I agree that is an understatement). Not only do their escapades give you heart burn, you are also worried about what is giving them acidity. Eating junk and unhealthy food, sadly, is what kids equate with cool. No amount of telling them will drive the point home. And a little more telling will drive them to rebellion and you to the nearest mental hospital. Every time they tell you they are “hanging out with friends” you feel like hanging yourself, right?

Now that we are speaking of ropes, let me suggest a better use for it: The tight-rope walk – a fine act of balancing. Many a wise men and women have raved about the virtue of balance. It sure comes in handy. If you think about it you will not have to worry about your children eating unhealthy junk once in a while if a large part of their diet is healthy.

Feeding them organic food regularly will give them a healthy enough lifestyle to combat the occasional evil of temptation. Organic food lends more nutrition to the body helping it develop a better immunity. Not to mention the fact that it is tastier and will help build your reputation around the kitchen simultaneously.

Now let us imagine a scenario. You are telling your children, “It’s been a while since we ordered pizza. How about we order tonight?” Your children are looking at you with a wave of elation in their eyes before breaking into shrieking excitement. Next day the Facebook status of your kid reads, “I have the coolest Mom on earth!” Isn’t it paradise?