GOQii

Blog

By Leave a Comment

Salty Facts

Most of us are of the opinion is too much salt is not good for our health after all salt is nothing but Sodium Chloride. Salt is processed from salt mines or by the evaporation of seawater. Salt is also present in foodstuff like meats, vegetables, fruits in small quantity.

Salt is used for various purposes, the most common of which is adding flavour to foods. Salt is also used as a food preservative, because bacteria have trouble growing in a salt-rich environment.

It is added to processed foods like canned foods, salted foods, and pickled foods, snack foods where it functions as both a preservative and flavouring. The main sources of salt in the diet, apart from traces of sodium found in excess in foods such as breads, cereal products, meat products, and milk and dairy products like Cheese.  In addition, salt is also used as a preservative; texture aid, binder, colordeveloper, and for fermentation Control.

Health effects

Table salt 6 g serving (1 teaspoon) contains about 2,300 mg of sodium. Sodium serves a vital purpose in the human body

* It helps brain nerves and muscles to create electric impulses

* It balances fluid in cells

The World Health Organization recommends that all adults should consume less than 2,000 mg of sodium which is contained in 5 g of salt per day. Guidelines by the United States in 2010 recommended that people with hypertension should limit consumption to no more than 1,500 mg of sodium per day.

The body has natural mechanism for storing water and ions (Na+) sodium and potassium ( K+ ) just as excess calories gets stored as fat in the body. Thus, it constantly maintains sodium level in cells.

Salt substitutes

Here are few salt substitutes specially to make food palatable for low salt meals.

Spices,herbs,ginger powder, lot of onion and garlic in cooking or garlic and onion powder,vinegars,lemon juice,Kokum,tamarind paste, mango powder, sour yogurt, dried thyme leaves,paprika,celery seeds, white pepper, dry mustard, dried lemon peel, ground black pepper etc. 

Types of Salt:

Salt while is one of the most important ingredients for cooking, not all salts are created equal and there are many types to choose from. We have Himalayan Pink Salt, Kosher Salt, Sea Salt to name a few and then we have the very old plain refined table salt. Not only do all these various salts differ in their taste and texture but, they also have differences in minerals and sodium content.

Let us take a look at the few of these salts and their benefits

  • Refined Salt (Regular Table Salt)

The most commonly used salt. It is highly refined to remove most of the impurities and trace minerals. It has 97% of sodium chloride or even higher. This type of salt is always added with Iodine.

  • Sea Salt

Sea salt is made by evaporating seawater. Like table salt, it is mostly just sodium chloride.However, it also has some traces of minerals such as potassium, iron and zinc depending on the place of harvesting and the way of processing.The darker the sea salt, the higher its concentration of impurities. Sea salt is often less ground than regular refined salt has a different taste than the regular table salt. It has a very potent “flavor burst” than refined salt.

  • Himalayan Pink Salt

Himalayan Pink salt contains traces of iron oxide which gives it the pink color.These salts are covered by lava and surrounded by ice hence remains untouched. These salts are also away from pollution. It does contain small amounts of calcium, iron, sulphate, potassium and magnesium, and slightly lower amounts of sodium than regular salt.

  • Kosher Salt

Kosher salt has a flaky structure that makes it easy to spread on top of your food. There is very little difference compared to regular salt and it has added iodine.

  • Epsom salt

It is also called as Magnesium sulphate salt which contains Magnesium, sulphur and Oxygen compounds. It is used both internally and externally. It is commonly used in bath salts and in beauty products. Internally it is used as saline laxative which is given intravenously.

The above mentioned salts can be replaced with your regular table salt for cooking for its various benefits that it has.

 

By 1 Comment

With brave wings she flies: Celebrating Womanhood

Screen-Shot-2015-03-08-at-9.18.49-AM-1030x765

Ruta Satam

She is a symbol of indomitable courage and power and the most beautiful creation of human kind whose mere absence is the loss of fragrance of life, she is the one who bears, rears and nurtures the life of all.

Today, the day of March 8th we celebrate womanhood to mark the International Women’s Day also known as International Working Women’s Day across the world in order to focus the achievements and contributions of the women in the society.

This is not a new phenomenon. Since the 1900s we have been celebrating womanhood in order to bring about a positive change towards gender equality and demanding equal rights for woman. There are several inspiring stories about women in India who have transformed their lives from just being Home makers to Change makers.

Today, we take you through some of these inspiring stories of women who have made an immense contribution towards helping other people in the society.

Pratima Devi: For most she might come across as a mere rag picker but, Pratima Devi is more than just a rag picker. She is a foster mother to 300 stray dogs. She does not care even if she gets a meal to eat but, she makes sure that these dogs do not hungry. You seldom find such individuals who are ready to forgo their own meal for a dog. She has been applauded for her great work and was awarded the Godfrey Philips Bravery Award for Social Bravery.
Priti Patkar: One always looks down upon sex workers as if they are some kind of a disease. However, Priti Patkar thought differently. She considered them one amongst us and decided to help them. She started an NGO-Prerna that has been doing pioneering work in the red light area of Mumbai. Looking at the plight of the kids of these sex workers she started the world’s first-night care center for children of these women.
Kalavati Devi: Then you have Kalavati Devi, a local resident of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh who thought about Swach Bharat and stop of open defecation in villages way before the PM Narendra Modi started the’ Swach Bharat’ movement. This 50-year-old woman helped in building   toilets across all slums and lower income neighbourhoods in her city. She went from house-to-house speaking to families and conducted joint meetings with the community to convince them to back her plan. The result of her efforts has paid in the form of funds pouring and getting support from the municipal corporation to build 50 seat toilets for approximately 700 families across the slums of Kanpur.
Chetna Gala: When we talk about women empowerment we only look at working women in corporate and the urban cities. Empowering women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors is essential to build stronger economies, achieve internationally agreed goals for development and sustainability, and improve the quality of life for women, men, families and communities. Let me take you through the women entrepreneurs of Mahaswad, Satara. They are part of Mann Deshi Udyogini, a ‘B-school’ for rural women. Mann Deshi Udyogini is not your average B-school and its students are most unlike typical management students. They are goatherds, vegetable vendors, roadside tea sellers, daily-wage labourers and homemakers, among other things. The classrooms are also unusual. The goat herding course, for instance, is taught in the fields. Mann Deshi Udyogini was founded by social activist Chetna Gala Sinha in 2006 with the support of HSBC Bank. The business school is run by Chetna’s Mann Deshi foundation. She works for social change in some of the poorest and most drought-stricken areas of rural India.
Andrea Thumshirn: Finally, social work in India is not the prerogative of the Indian’s alone. We also have several foreign nationals who have visited the country once and decided to stay back and help the under privileged in their own little way. Andrea Thumshirn, a German premier league hockey player is one such foreign national who came to India as a tour operator. But, things changed for her when she visited a remote village in Rajasthan and decided to stay there and teach hockey to rural kids. She brings the same passion and love for the game to India and trains kids to play hockey in Garh Himmat Singh village in Rajasthan through her NGO called Hockey Village India

Good in work and all her deeds,
She does everything without any greed.
Her aims for life are very high,
She always has a vision in her sparkling eye.
She always believes in hard work and perseverance,
Her heart is filled with endurance.
She loves to help;
She loves to share,
A lot of pain she has to bare.
she has an ability to choose good,
so lets all of us Celebrate Womanhood!

Amelia Cruise

By 4 Comments

5 tips to eat safe outside your home

cut-fruits_625x350_51432907748

Eating outside your home comes as a big relief for most of us especially when we want to have something different from the regular routine “Ghar ka Khana”.

No matter how much we love home cooked food, there comes a point in time when we all crave for outside food even if it is not prepared in the best hygienic way. And well, it’s the first thing foodies like me look forward to do when on holidays or socializing.

Usually,nutritionists and dieticians always emphasize on healthy choices and mindful eating practices while eating out. But sadly, eating healthy i.e non-fatty, low calorie foods alone don’t help to stay healthy and fit. While we pay attention to the fat or sugar content and the processing method of the food while eating out, it’s also equally important to make sure what is served on our plate is safe enough to be consumed.

Failure to adhere to proper safety measures can cause nausea, vomiting, cramps, stomach upset, and in worst case can lead to a serious episode of food poisoning or food borne illness. Thus,a mere act of enjoyment and pleasing the taste buds ends up putting extra stress on our digestive and immune system.

So what’s the alternative? Is there something which can take care of both-the taste buds and our body’s system? The Answer is YES

Here are 5 simple tips which can help us lower the health risk and ensure that the food safety part is not completely ignored!

1) Look for eateries having open kitchen or at least which allows a view of the kitchen

Food safety is all about what goes beyond the scenes i,e inside the kitchen and depends on the person who is cooking as well as the one who is serving the food. Hence, opting for places or restaurant joints that have open kitchen or dining place which allows you to have a view of the kitchen area helps a lot. This will give you some idea of the cleanliness of the kitchen premise, the utensils/equipment and also whether the chef and other kitchen staff are taking care of personal hygiene or not.

2) Go for places/joints which are always crowded or have high visitor ratio

Apart from ensuring that such restaurant is popular and serves tasty food, it will also ensure safer food. This is because crowded places have high turnover of food, and hence chances of getting served stale food reduces (example-the left over gravies and sauces or foods such as cooked rice from previous day).

3) Avoid opting for dishes which are too exotic, off beat or off seasonal

This is largely to play safe as we never know which ingredients go inthe preparation of such foods. Also,it’salways best to avoid dishes which have offseasonal food ingredients say any fruit or vegetable, because storage method of such foods then is a big question?Which if not stored properly as per the protocol can impose a potential risk for food toxicity.

4) Prefer cooked foods over raw or cold foods

This is applicable while eatingin the roadside eateries or joints as they often use food items like chopped onion, peeled potatoes, chutneys etc; which are pre prepared and if not covered and stored properlycan be subjected to contamination from flies, pests etc and thus become a potential health hazard. Opting for cooked foods ensures that at least some microbes get destroyed due to heat.

For example:

#Go for grilled/toasted sandwich instead of regular sandwich

5)Beware of what you eat during buffet set ups

** Avoid having cut salads, cold pastas and fruits in buffet set ups like weddings or in hotels since they are likely to sit there for a long time before they actually go into our plate.We can have soups, grilled/sauteedveggies or steamed starters instead of salads in such situations to fill ourselves and save us from overindulgence.

** Besides this, make sure that all other foods kept at buffet table are maintained at proper temperatures; cold food should be kept cold, hot food should be kept hot when you serve them on your plate.

Remember, next time when you head out just follow these simple tips to make sure you enjoy your time away from the kitchen without thinking of the extra calories or worrying about food poisoning…think good nutrition!!

By 4 Comments

My Love for ‘Ghee’ and its 14 benefits

ghee_040312114403_041212010245

Whenever I close my eyes and recollect my childhood or pregnancy happiness’ I feel that amazing smell of Ghee, the pure, unadulterated, smooth and delicious ghee or better known as Clarified butter largely made out of Cow’s milk.

I still remember my childhood days when my mom used to fry Luchis also called Poories–Indian fried Wheat bread in ghee and I simply relished it the divine smell of ghee. And I equally relish Indian sweets made in pure claified butter. Even our lentils used to be tempered with ghee, rotis with ghee spread on them, ghee with steaming hot rice, ghee to top the veggies, ghee ke laddoos……. the list is never ending.

I grew up having loads of clarified butter, but it’s only when I did my Masters in Food & nutrition that I got a clearer view on ghee or clarified butter and my love for it.

Being a Nutritionist & a mom of two young kids, I have always been posed with the question how is it that I give my kids food with so much ghee? Well the fact is that Ghee is safe to have and that it has several nutritional benefits

Before we come to the benefits let’s look at some facts and what science says

FACTS

Ayurveda says

Among the four kinds of fat namely Gritha (ghee), Taila (oil), Vasa (fat), Majja (bone marrow) Ayurveda considers GHEE as the best among these. According to Ayurveda, ghee made from cow’s milk promotes memory, intellect and digestion. It also promotes healing of wounds, keeps the skin lustrous and maintains immunity.

Science says 

Modern science has discovered that ghee is rich in antioxidants. The fats in ghee aid absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and minerals from other foods, strengthening the immune system. Ghee is also rich in butyric acid, a fatty acid with anti-viral properties, which is believed to prevent cancers and tumours.

Recent research has also detected presence of linoleic acid in ghee. Linoleic acid retards the growth of some cancers and protects us from heart disease. This acid is often lacking in a vegetarian diet.

According to B S Raheja, the ex-director of All India Institute of Diabetes, the present epidemics of diabetes, heart disease and some cancers is due to not including ghee in our diets.

Benefits of Ghee

  • Ghee is a source of beta carotene and vitamins A, D, E, and K. Beta carotene and vitamin E are vital antioxidants. Vitamin A is naturally present in ghee, which is lacking in other edible oils.
  • Ghee has no milk solids, lactose or sugars. These get separated out when the butter is made into ghee, so it’s good for lactose intolerant people too
  • Organic ghee has no additives, preservatives, oxidized cholesterol or trans-fatty acids that clog arteries.
  • Ghee is highly stable and does not go rancid even at room temperature.
  • Clarified butter has a very high smoke point than butter but lesser than oil—it does not burn at high cooking temperatures. So it’s always better to cook in ghee than butter as butter burns very easily
  • Ghee is primarily saturated fat. One tablespoon of ghee provides 14g of saturated fat, 28mg of cholesterol and roughly 120 calories.
  • Ghee is useful for both external and internal use. Because ghee helps to increase immunity, that subtle essence of tissue that is responsible for life, radiant health, vigour, longevity and overall well being.
  • Slows down ageing process by adding a minimum of ghee to your food everyday.
  • It also removes toxins from body & mind.
  • Ghee is beneficial in promoting growth and development in children. It also improves memory and concentration power.
  • Ghee has its healing properties. If used directly on cuts, wounds or burns, it has powerful healing action. It can be used to cure gangerine . ulcers etc.
  • Pure ghee has anti-oxidant properties which promotes healthy metabolism and aids weight loss(when used in a moderation)
  • Intake of Ghee reduces the cholesterol both in the serum & intestine by triggering an increased secretion of biliary lipids.
  • Ghee is good for nerves & brains. It helps control eye pressure and is beneficial to glaucoma patients.

From Terminal Illness To Complete Wellness! Ananda Mukherjee Health Story

As we observe World Cancer Day under the powerful theme ‘United by Unique’ (2025-2027)**, we are reminded that every individual’s journey with cancer is distinct, yet united by shared resilience, hope, and the collective fight against this disease. This theme places people at the centre of care and their stories at the heart of the […]