Manufactured Demand & Environment

Before reading any further, just watch each video. They do not take much of your time but give you lot of information. I am grateful to “The Story of Stuff” project for enlightening me and everyone.

I think the situation explained in these videos is not explicitly related to US but to all other countries. Consider the situation of bottled water. We all know, especially in India, how we use bottled water. How much environmental damage are we causing just for the water that we buy and drink? Although I had little idea about it, I realized its worse than what I have thought. And can you really explain why the plastic bottle waste is sent to India for recycling? Does the government of India realize that we are actually cleaning someone’s waste? Are we in such a bad situation to increase our revenue in all possible ways? Reasons like this are behind taking India for granted as a cheap country despite the fact that we are one of the fast growing countries in terms of science, technology and economy. Reasons like this are giving scope to the words like ‘Third World’. Why do we need to degrade ourselves like this just for money? I recollect the words by Amitabh Bachchan when he disliked Oscars being given to “The Slumdog Millionaire” where India is projected as a poor and backward country. Its not only the government, the politicians but also every Indian should consider this as a matter of self respect. No doubt that we need money but we do not need it the stake of self respect. Please do not fall for the manufactured demand. There are ways better than what we have now. As mentioned in the video, it is our right to ask Government to supply better water rather than relying on bottled water.
Just watch this video which is of completely different topic.

Can you guess what I am about to propose after watching this video? I am not going to tell you to stop using your toothpaste or soap or deodorant or shampoo. Because you would have already realized the facts around them. I am going to tell you the things that you already know of but, probably, never understood the importance of them. These are the alternatives to the cosmetics that we are using. Luckily these are part of our Indian tradition. The nature is giving a lot to us and there is no need to run behind these cosmetics. Neem or the Margosa sticks instead of a toothpaste is an alternative. Instead of soaps, you can use, Sunni pindi, a herbal bath powder. Use turmeric powder for healthy skin. How about using Reetha or Gooseberry (Amla) for head wash? Aren't they good an natural? We have to always remember that good and profitable things come in difficult way. Bad and harmful things come in an easy way. These cosmetic companies are experimenting on us? Isn't the Indian tradition more powerful than these products? Please come out of the manufactured demand. We do not need these. If someone asks me are you following these before telling someone? I would say no but I understood the importance of it and rather than using them now and then, I will follow them regularly from now.
The bad luck is that our (Indian) people are making fun of ourselves and our tradition. Let us not do that and let us not cause any more damage to our environment. We are already experiencing the results of the damage. Let us live and let others live by creating sustainable culture. Let us not throw waste just like that and let us not do things that cause damage to our respect. Thanks for understanding and following.
I am not going to talk about this video but just watch it, it is an informational one too.

A new threat, the micro beads. So updating my post.

           

Daily routine for Diabetic patients

Here is an article that explains about daily food intake for keeping the blood sugar levels low. Found this very useful, hence posting on my blog. Thanks to EENADU news paper. Let me know if you find it difficult to read Telugu. I will try to translate the same.

Healthy Snack foods

Continuing my posts related to ‘Life close to nature’, here is some additional info that I wanted to share. The list below contains healthy natural food items that can be taken as ‘SNACKS’. Imagine, what snacks generally mean to us. Any food taken between breakfast-lunch or lunch-dinner, any number of times is generally snacks to us. Some people give more amounts of snacks to the body than the actual breakfast, lunch and dinner :) . And what constitutes of these snacks? General breakfast items like dosas, poori, vada, bajjis etc, chinese foods like ‘FRIED’ rice, 65 items, manchurias etc, any popular local foods that might be made at high temperatures. One of most important points that were taught in my class ‘Eat the food that is NOT DEAD’. Whenever you fry something, it will become a dead food which has zero values in it. And it’s a mere waste that your digestive system acts on. They have given a good simple example that is worth mentioning. “Do animals on the roads/forest brush its teeth in the morning?” They dont ! But still an animal’s teeth is strong enough life long to crush something that enters its mouth. How? Because, unless you the man kind put something cooked/fried to it, it never searches for any cooked stuff to eat. It is only the man who brushes his teeth after eating the junk which was already dead and started decomposing even before it entered your mouth. Strange but true, I believe.
So here is a list of foods that are naturally healthy to your body and mind, that satisfies your snack hunger. I am not saying that every time you go for snacks, you kill your wish to eat something out of this list. But what I suggest is to start including them in your snack menu if you are already not doing so. Its just a suggestion from my end. And remember, any action done in overdose is always injurious to you. So be careful.
Healthy & natural snack food:
1. Soaked peanuts with sufficient jaggery.
2. Raw churned cocunut with jaggery
3. Dates
4. Fruits
5. Fruit Juices
6. vegetables  juices
7. Sugarcane juice
8. Coconut water
9. Sprouts
10. Honey, should not be taken in the amounts that you would drink but in the amounts that you would lick :)
11. Natural Lime tea that doesn’t include Tea powder at all :) . It’s a hot serving of lemon water, honey and some mint added to it.
12. Buttermilk- Drink 1ltr buttermilk daily for healthy body. Make sure that mix of 200ml buttermilk and 800ml water in it.
Better to add coriander leaves, ginger,salt/rock salt.
13. Dry fruits/dry fruit made items.
14. Sweet made with churned coconut, jaggery, beetroot juice etc
15. After seeing the above list, you should have understood what are the kinds of snacks that I am posting about. So in case you felt I missed something here. Add to the comments or email me, I would add them.
Let me know your comments, suggestions and feedback.

Life Close To Nature

What ever I am going to say below is about 90% of the employed people and most of the people of all cadres. . There is no diploma or qualification of me to certify that or in fact any statement below. I just wrote it from what I have learnt and understood. You can cross verify from any Naturopathic expert.

Its been 4 or 5 years since I am trying to live with Nature. You might ask, aren't we living close to the nature? I can definitely say we are not. We wake up in the morning, start our food generally by taking coffee/tea/milk powders mixed with Milk that comes in PLASTIC covers. Then we will take good break fast (either baked or with heavy oils), 4 hours later – lunch (‘65 fries, cooked under high temperatures) , 4 hours later – snacks (Chaats/Baked items/Oily snacks) and 4 hours later – dinner (heavy dinners). So the day starts with an anti Natural material. Leave thinking and arguing about the solutions and alternatives. Isn’t this true? I had some curiosity from my child hood to know about how our elders lived, their food habits, their culture, their living practices. Many questions haunted my mind like, How are they still active in their 60s and 70s? Why are people of this generation in ages 20-30 are not having equal energies as of people of same age of older generations? What are healthy foods then? I have been trying to find answers for questions like these and understood many things that are worth sharable. I will share all the details in this blog and all the posts will be with the tag “Live With Nature”

Why live close to Nature? Well, I can say the answer is HEALTH as a science student but as a spiritual way, to attain Moksha. Its not for living long life but for leading a healthy life. Its a transaction between you and the Nature. You give something to Nature and in turn, Nature gives you a lot. There should be a * for that statement, means Terms and Conditions Apply, important one being ‘Every living being should contribute’.

I enquired my grand parents about their habits, what they used to eat? How does the food that they take had balanced nutrition? Which food helps for healing what? How they did bathing? What made their physical bodies had exercise? I did receive interesting information from them. Also I had been to Yoga classes last month for about 25 days (a basic course). It was here where I was really inspired and got motivated. I got lots of information from our Guruji who had given gyaan about many things. He always used to say “One who keeps his mind and food in control, will lead a beautiful and healthy life” which is very true. Your food controls not only your physical health but also mental health and emotions. Chilli powder is an example, which brings anger. And also your mind, a positive one gives a good health and a negative one kills your health. These are the two reasons behind every action, decision and reactions in your life. He taught us about our Indian culture, its traditions, how healthy they are. He always said we left our traditions only to become patients. Especially the greatness of traditions of the Hinduism as religion (every religion has its own great traditions to practice) which people are currently never bothered about. Things only they are concerned about is Hinduism and not its greatness and healthy traditions. It is only used to fight and create caste issues etc. Complete negativity everywhere. That's an entirely different story.

Some people commented about my age and about my interest in Yoga and taking food precautions, especially during the course. They say my age and my actions had no relation. Some laughed at me too. What I felt is its nothing wrong and age does make the difference. There is a saying in Telugu “Mokkai vanganidi, mranai vanguna” which means “If a plant doesn't bend, will it bend after becoming a tree?”. You have to be careful when you are at young age which makes a lot of difference in your living at elder ages. Especially the food one takes, the exercises that you do, the sports you play, the travel you do, the amount of strain you undergo etc. Everything counts. You are responsible for your future, your children’s future, your neighbor's future, Nature’s future. And I never took these comments wrong because the awareness is what that is lacking. I felt its my responsibility to let people know about this and spread the awareness, let them receive it in any fashion.

Some commented, science is advancing and you are going into past. There are medicines to keep you healthy. But frankly, can you tell confidently that you can live healthy with out taking more than one tablet/capsule per day entire life? You can live for 100 healthy years? Well, I am not saying all the medicines are killing you, but what I say is they are not required for every illness that you  experience. I am requesting to go for prevention rather than cure. Cure is required but prevention is what is more required. You have a heart problem. Why does your child suffer with the same disease genetically? What wrong did your child, who is not even born, do? In my view and from what I have learnt and understood, living close to Nature will effect your future generations in a positive way. There is no diploma or qualification of me to certify that statement. I just wrote it from what I have learnt and understood. You can cross verify from an Naturopathic expert.

I want to add many points to this but I will do it in future posts. For now, to start with, I want to give one healthy recipe, Finger millet Porridge, which is called Raagi Jaava in Telugu.

Raagi Jaava is an utterly delicious and healthy natural food made out of several cereals. It is rich in proteins and vitamins and is a healthy diet that has every right to replace everyday drinks like coffee, tea, milk, cold beverages etc. People of all ages > 1 can consume more than 200ml every morning to have a good start for the day. Just understand why people of current generations are not having enough energies for their age when compared to their elders. Food is major reason behind this difference and natural foods like this should fill the gap. You can greatly save time in making this recipe as this wont take much time to prepare but will satisfy your hunger for sure. Try it out!!

Ingredients

The ingredient quantity is for 200ml of Raagi Jaava

Water - 220ml

Raagi powder (Finger millets grinded powder) - 2-3 tea spoons

Jaggery (bellam) - as required

Cashew Nuts crushed to small pieces (jeedi pappu) - 1 - 2 tea spoon

Cow Ghee (aavu neyyi) - 1 Tea spoon

Preparation

1) Start boiling the water at an average flame. Add Raagi powder to the boiling water.

2) Stir the water continuously so that the Raagi lumps are not formed.

3) Boil for around 10min until the soup turns into black color and also it should be sticky and concentrated.

4) Add Jaggery, Cashew nuts and cow ghee to it and stir for couple of more minutes until the jaggery gets melted.

5) Put off the stove when you see black Raagi Jaava with white cashew nut pieces distributed all over.

6) Sip it hot to enjoy the taste. Be careful while sipping as your mouth might burn !!!