50 Desi Super Drinks

Milk is one of the most misunderstood fluid these days. Milk remains an offering to the gods for an answer to our prayers, but when it comes to milk as an offering to our stomach, a certain hesitation takes over. Many fitness enthusiasts I meet automatically mark that they have an allergy to it on their assessment sheets when they are not even lactose intolerant, and they all come with the same mantra: milk is not meant for adults. Just like any other fluid, it is not meant for adults who are lactose intolerant or allergic to it, but that does not make it a forbidden drink for the rest of us.

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Stress is a silent killer that is now rooted deep into our systems, and what makes it dangerous is that we are almost always unaware of it. Sometimes it’s the stress to achieve, or it’s the stress to retain or the stress of coping with a loss. No matter where we are in life, there’s no room for complacency anymore. There’s an old saying, ‘Jaisa ann, vaisa mann’ (As is the food, so is the thought), pointing to the fact that every morsel we eat has an effect on our mental and emotional well-being.

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This desi drink is something I thought I would never need to defend until I started my practice in Delhi. The number of people who called it fattening was rather shocking. Once a lady almost cried after a 20-minute-long fact check comparing sugar-free frozen yoghurt to coconut water. There are 39 calories on an average in one coconut. It takes 7,700 calories to make one kilo of fat and even though that math is not always linear, coconut water is far from ‘fattening’.

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This one is a dieter’s delight, a morning ritual for instant weight loss. Those numbers can govern our mood, energy and self-worth. Now there goes an error in judgement; our body weight is a limited measure to evaluate fitness. But there’s still something to the kilos that makes us take desperate measures towards weight loss success. I often come across women who would otherwise prefer a salt-free dinner and ‘indulge’ in dal–rice, thanks to this morning star. The fear of eating salt goes out of the window when coriander seed water comes to the rescue. It makes me wonder, shouldn’t our quest for fitness bring more stability and strength to life—body and mind included? On the contrary, modern-day fitness trends comprising of changing food habits and photoshopped bodies have left us even more restless and insecure. The science behind healthy eating may be simple but we surely have become more complicated. 

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Every time we hear the word ‘berry’, our mind automatically goes ‘healthy’, so it should come as no surprise that mulberry makes it to the superfood list. This sounds very foreign, but it is more commonly known as shahtoot in India. It is a desi super fruit that can give any exotic berry a run for its money. Listen to the Podcast 50 Desi Super Drinks with celebrity nutritionist Lovneet Batra and with one of our Top RJ's RJ Mandee on the RedFM India App

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Popping up everywhere, from fancy juice bars to your neighbourhood park, wheatgrass juice is an old player in the world of natural health. It comes from the freshly sprouted leaves of the wheat plant that are usually harvested in 7–10 days, after sprouting. It is traditionally sown in India as khetri during Navratri as an offering to the Mother Goddess on the last day, symbolizing devotion and prosperity for the upcoming harvesting season. The juice extracted from wheatgrass is known to be liquid sunshine as it contains high levels of chlorophyll, a plant pigment that can transform energy from sunlight into food. Being structurally similar to haemoglobin, a protein that is responsible for carrying oxygen in our body, wheatgrass juice is also known as the green blood that can help in boosting energy levels. It is also an excellent source of many different vitamins and minerals. Listen to the Podcast 50 Desi Super Drinks with celebrity nutritionist Lovneet Batra and with one of our Top RJ's RJ Mandee on the RedFM India App

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Bael juice is a summer solace that can rescue us from the scorching sun. The cooling effect of this hard-shelled fruit is not just restricted to heat relief for the body but is believed to bring calmness to the mind. It’s known as Shiva’s (the hot-tempered deity) favourite fruit, so much so that worshipping Lord Shiva is fruitless without the leaves of the bael tree. The trifoliate shape of the bael leaf signifies the three components or ‘gunas’, namely the sattva, rajas and tamas. And the centre portion of the leaf is concentrated with the perfect balance of the three. For my naturopathy teacher, it was auspicious, purifying and the secret to his vitality and strength at age 98. Bael juice was our mandatory potion—the final cleanse post the four-hour-long healing treatment to create a no-toxin zone. Listen to the Podcast 50 Desi Super Drinks with celebrity nutritionist Lovneet Batra and with one of our Top RJ's RJ Mandee on the RedFM India App

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Pharmacies have never looked so colourful and friendly before, thanks to a new rage for skin care and nutraceutical products. If you have been distracted by those tempting claims, you might have stumbled upon a whole array of functional extracts that go beyond the regular vitamin, mineral and protein mixes. Our problem is too many choices, which is a good problem when you know what you really want but it leaves you restless otherwise. Listen to the Podcast 50 Desi Super Drinks with celebrity nutritionist Lovneet Batra and with one of our Top RJ's RJ Mandee on the RedFM India App

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When we think weight loss, we think of restriction and cutting out the calories. Then begins the game of willpower; some people might also think of gaining weight as a lack of discipline or just a simple culmination of bad choices. But if you think about it, how free is our free will? Aren’t our choices a by-product of the options we have to choose from and in the case of food, our natural instinct to satisfy hunger governed by various chemical reactions happening inside our body? When it comes to fitness, isn’t willpower overrated? Talking of our internal environment, stabilizing our hunger hormones is the key to weight loss. In my definition, fattening foods are the ones that don’t just come with empty calories but also never satisfy our hunger. Think of a box of cookies or a packet of chips; it might have the same or fewer calories as compared to a paneer parantha, but the fact that wholesome foods stabilize hunger as opposed to junk foods that make you even more hungry is what makes chips and biscuits ‘fattening’. Buttermilk is an appetite stabilizer; try having a glass of buttermilk around your peak hunger hours and see the magic. You will feel energized and not driven towards high-salt-high-sugar foods. Listen to the Podcast 50 Desi Super Drinks with celebrity nutritionist Lovneet Batra and with one of our Top RJ's RJ Mandee on the RedFM India App

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Indian blackberry or jamun is a purplish mix of sweet and sour with a tinge of astringent-like taste and numerous health benefits. They say get busy living or get busy dying; well, we are busy for sure, but with a mix of both. We cannot let go of habits that are slowly killing us so we have the hope and longing to find antidotes for our vices. No wonder we are on a constant hunt for detox to clear up the toxicity born out of our habits, jobs or relationships. The simple solutions are no longer enough; we need seductive labels and the health industry is getting good at throwing those at us to make a quick buck. Eating your fruits and vegetables is boring advice; we need more alluring labels like the ORACle diet which is the same old saga that stands for oxygen absorption capacity (ORAC), wrapped in a fancy name. Here the oracle is delivering the prophecy of our kitchen gatekeepers: eat in season, in variety, throughout the day. So there is no reason to skip jamun during its short availability in monsoons. Listen to the Podcast 50 Desi Super Drinks with celebrity nutritionist Loveneet Batra and with one of our Top RJ's RJ Mandee on the RedFM India App

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