Category: Ancient Wisdom

Collection of blogs to share the ancient wisdom from more deeper meaning to understand and inculcate the knowledge into our daily lifestyle. Unlock the science behind the rituals, samskaras, practises, and so on.

Detox Waters

One of the traditional views of Naturopathy considers all diseases as nothing but a result of morbid toxin accumulation in the body. So by removing these toxins (detoxification), you can regain good health is the belief (provided one also follows the other things required for good health including cultivating a sound mind and physical exercise).

To help in this detoxification, you can prepare a few Detox Waters that can help you maintain good health every day. There are specific Detox Waters depending upon the disease you suffer from. Or, you can just alternate between each of these Detox Waters one day a week and cover all the days and stay detoxed! Don’t over do it though. Listen to your body and follow its wisdom.

Types of Detox Waters:

  1. Jeera Water
  2. Amla Water
  3. Nannari Water
  4. Rose Water
  5. Methi Water
  6. Lotus Water
  7. Dhania Water

How to prepare and use the Detox Water:

  1. If it’s Jeera/Methi/Dhania – take 1 spoon. If it is Amla, take one fruit (grate it). If it is Nannari or Rose petals, take a handful. If it is Lotus, take one full medium sized flower (along with stem, petals, etc.)
  2. Soak the base component overnight in 250 ml of water, preferably in a copper vessel.
  3. Boil the above mixture the next day morning till the water reduces to half.
  4. Take off the flame and filter out the solids.
  5. Dilute the leftover concentrated liquid to 1 or 1.5 liters.
  6. Sip throughout the day (or as long as it lasts) ensuring it mixes well with your saliva before you swallow.

Benefits of Detox Water:

  1. Jeera Water helps aid weight loss and also increases the body metabolism. Also, helps in addressing digestive issues
  2. Amla Water helps address blood-related problems.
  3. Nannari Water is good at healing urinary issues and balancing pitta in the body
  4. Rose Water (typically red desi varieties are preferred) helps in reducing acidity and is great for skin problems, balancing pitta, body/mouth adour, and Blood Pressure
  5. Methi Water is good for helping with diabetes, hair fall, and women’s problems such as white discharge
  6. Lotus/Dhania Water is very very good for balancing blood pressure (both high and low blood pressure).

If you’d like, you can also add the juice of one lemon to the diluted detox water for more flavor.

Author: Vaijayanthi

Vaijayanthi is a freelance business writer and full-time gardener. She coaches people on adopting a chemical-free lifestyle through her initiative called the Kaustubam for Sustainable Living Practices. She also conducts various physical workshops and training sessions on sustainable living and Gardening for children in Bengaluru through the initiative The Happy Child.

Sweet and Raw Ladies Finger Starters

Have you ever thought of using Ladies Finger as a starter except in the form of Bhendi Fry? How about if we give you a recipe for a sweet and RAW Ladies Finger starter that you will not only eat happily but will even look for a second serving? Here, take a look at this super simple and super delicious recipe for Ladies Finder Starter.

Sweet and Raw Ladies Finger Starter

 

Ingredients:

  1. Quarter Kilo Ladies Finger
  2. 2-3 Lemons (adjust according to taste)
  3. 5-6 spoons of Jaggery powder (adjust according to taste)
  4. Juice of 1 or 2 medium size Ginger pieces

Method:

  1. Wash the Ladies Finger well and pat dry.
  2. Slit them sideways partially (not fully; the Ladies Finger should not come apart and should stay intact). Ensure there are no worms.
  3. Combine the juice of lemons, Ginger and Jaggery Powder and mix until the Jaggery is dissolved completely. You may add a bit of water to get a smooth syrupy consistency.
  4. Now, soak the slit Ladies Finger in this syrup for up to 3 hours.
  5. Your Sweet and Raw Ladies Finger Starter is now ready to be served.

Few Health Benefits:

  1. Ladies Fingers are a great source of natural Iodine and can be a wonderful natural remedy to deal with Thyroid problems.
  2. The combination of Lemon and Ginger juice helps make the raw Ladies Finger easier to consume as-is without cooking/frying. This helps ensure all the nutritional properties of Ladies Finger are kept intact.

It’s enough if one person has 2-3 of these starters every day to get all the health benefits.

You can also replace the Ladies Finger with Snake Gourd and make Sweet and Raw Snake Gourd starter. Come on now, give it a try!

Author: Vaijayanthi

Vaijayanthi is a freelance business writer and full-time gardener. She coaches people on adopting a chemical-free lifestyle through her initiative called the Kaustubam for Sustainable Living Practices. She also conducts various physical workshops and training sessions on sustainable living and Gardening for children in Bengaluru through the initiative The Happy Child.

Sprouts Milk (Vegan Milk)- Great alternative to Cow’s Milk

If you have been looking for a good alternative to Cow’s milk (either due to health reasons, cruelty reasons or any other reasons), you have many choices today – including Almond Milk, Soy Milk, Rice Milk, Hemp Milk, Coconut Milk and Sprouts Milk. While the first five may be commercially available off the shelf in super markets, they can also prove to be a bit economically unviable for everyday use. In such a case, do not worry!

Here’s a wonderful alternative to these Vegan Milk options which is also very very healthy – and what’s more – you can make five different variations of this milk as well! Yes, I am talking about Sprout’s Milk. Let’s quickly look at how to make this milk before we look at the benefits of this milk.

How to make Sprout’s Milk:

  1. Take any one millet/gram of your choice from the ones listed above – Finger Millet or Pearl Millet or Foxtail Millet Or Horsegram or Whole Greengram.
  2. Wash it once, remove any impurities/stones and then soak it for 5 – 6 hours (or overnight). You need not wait till the sprouts fully appear but if you want to do so, there’s no harm either. This recipe looks at how we can prepare Sprout’s milk fresh every day with just five minutes of work the previous night.
  3. Once the millet/gram is soaked sufficiently (and just about starting to sprout if you let it longer than 6 hours), put it in a blender with some water and grind it nicely.
  4. Filter out the liquid with a fine mesh. This is your thick Sprout’s Milk.
  5. Add equal quantity of hot water to this extracted thick Sprout’s Milk.
  6. Add Jaggery and Elaichi to give it sweetness and flavor and consume as an alternative to regular milk.

Why Sprouts Milk:

  1. As you know, millets and grams pack quite a punch of nutrients and are considered super foods.
  2. They are also cheaper compared to any other type of vegan milk including Almond Milk.
  3. They also help you replace the so called commercial health drinks which in reality may not have much nutrition at all.

Do give this recipe a try and let us know how it worked for you. Perhaps, you can even combine one or two millets and extract mixed Sprout’s Milk.

Author: Vaijayanthi

Vaijayanthi is a freelance business writer and full-time gardener. She coaches people on adopting a chemical-free lifestyle through her initiative called the Kaustubam for Sustainable Living Practices. She also conducts various physical workshops and training sessions on sustainable living and Gardening for children in Bengaluru through the initiative The Happy Child.

Greens Kheer – A healthy morning drink

In the previous two posts, we saw three wonderful recipes for a healthy morning drink (Curry Leaves Kheer, Carrot OR Beetroot Kheer). We can also replace the curry leaves/carrot/beetroot with Greens such as Ponnagannai (Alternanthera/ Matsyakshi/ Honganne/ Ponnaganti koora) or Karisalankanni (Bhringaraj). Both these greens (healing herbs actually) are fantastic for eyesight and skin health.

By alternating between these five different recipes, one can ensure a healthy, balanced nutrition is provided to the family throughout the week. What’s more, these recipes also be a great alternative to cow’s milk being Vegan recipes.

Here are also a few tips that can help you adapt these recipes quickly into your lifestyle:

  1. If you or your child prefers a hot drink in the morning, you can simply use medium hot/warm water to prepare the juice. Do not boil it, however.
  2. You may also grind the Coconut separately and extract the Coconut milk and then add it to the other ingredients while grinding. That way, you can get the Coconut fiber separately – which you can use in your regular cooking for chutneys, sabjis, sambar, etc.
  3. You can also try doing it with few other vegetables (or maybe even fruits). The fun lies in experimenting with a taste and consistency you will fall in love with (or rather your children will come to love!).
  4. You may also try adding a bit of water to get a more liquid consistency. You may need to increase the Jaggery though.
  5. You can also replace Jaggery/Country Sugar with Palm Sugar and get the additional benefits of Palm Sugar
  6. The consistent use of Coriander and Ginger in all the recipes ensures good digestion power.

Additionally, these recipes should take you just about 3-5 minutes to prepare provided you have all ingredients handy. This is much lesser than the time taken to boil milk and prepare your health drink/coffee/tea. So that’s time saved in the kitchen which you can use elsewhere!

If you have a variation of this kheer which you think will work great, please do try and share your feedback with us. We would love to try it as well!

Author: Vaijayanthi

Vaijayanthi is a freelance business writer and full-time gardener. She coaches people on adopting a chemical-free lifestyle through her initiative called the Kaustubam for Sustainable Living Practices. She also conducts various physical workshops and training sessions on sustainable living and Gardening for children in Bengaluru through the initiative The Happy Child.

Carrot/Beetroot Kheer – A healthy morning drink

Carrot/Beetroot Kheer

Ingredients:

  1. One Carrot OR Beetroot
  2. 2 -3 medium size pieces of Coconut (Or a bit less than half a crown)
  3. 5 – 6 spoons of powdered Jaggery/Country Sugar (Depending on how sweet you want it)
  4. A bunch of Coriander Leaves
  5. A piece or two of Ginger
  6. 4-5 Elachi
Carrot Kheer (Skip the curry leaves shown in the picture)

Method:

  1. In a blender or mixie, grind all the ingredients listed together
  2. For children, filter the liquid and separate the fiber out
  3. For adults, you may consume the juice as-is with the fiber if possible else you may filter the fiber out as well. Feed the pulp to your plants/compost.
  4. Your super healthy Curry leaves kheer is ready. Pour into a re-usable glass and enjoy the innumerable health benefits.

Few Health Benefits:

  1. Carrot is extremely good for eyesight and skin.
  2. Beetroot is good for Iron and Magnesium and helps increase Haemoglobin in Blood.
  3. Both Carrot and Beetroot helps increase immune power and are a good source of vitamins and minerals.

Author: Vaijayanthi

Vaijayanthi is a freelance business writer and full-time gardener. She coaches people on adopting a chemical-free lifestyle through her initiative called the Kaustubam for Sustainable Living Practices. She also conducts various physical workshops and training sessions on sustainable living and Gardening for children in Bengaluru through the initiative The Happy Child.

Curry Leaves Kheer – A healthy morning drink

Curry Leaves Kheer

Ingredients:

  1. Two handsful of Curry Leaves
  2. 2 -3 medium size pieces of Coconut (Or a bit less than half a crown)
  3. 5 – 6 spoons of powdered Jaggery/Country Sugar (Depending on how sweet you want it)
  4. A bunch of Coriander Leaves
  5. A piece or two of Ginger
  6. 4-5 Elachi
Curry Leaves Kheer (you may additionally add a carrot or beetroot piece as well)

Method:

  1. In a blender or mixie, grind all the ingredients listed together
  2. For children, filter the liquid and separate the fiber out
  3. For adults, you may consume the juice as-is with the fiber if possible else you may filter the fiber out as well. Feed the pulp to your plants/compost.
  4. Your super healthy Curry leaves kheer is ready. Pour into a re-usable glass and enjoy the innumerable health benefits.

Few Health Benefits:

  1. Extremely good for your hair and scalp; Promotes hair growth and controls hair fall
  2. Helps increase digestive power and heals stomach ulcers
  3. Good for dealing with women health related problems
  4. The Kheer is also a complete nutritionally balanced drink – Curry leaves provide Iron, Magnesium, and Calcium, Jaggery provides Carbohydrates and Iron, Coriander helps balance the heat generated by Iron (compensating excess pitta), and Coconut acts a natural source of rich Protein, and Ginger helps increase digestive power.

 

Author: Vaijayanthi

Vaijayanthi is a freelance business writer and full-time gardener. She coaches people on adopting a chemical-free lifestyle through her initiative called the Kaustubam for Sustainable Living Practices. She also conducts various physical workshops and training sessions on sustainable living and Gardening for children in Bengaluru through the initiative The Happy Child.

5th Year Celebration of our Holistic Whatsapp Group – Awards

its 5 years, its time to share our gratitude to those noble souls who build this community with their bare hands.

When you start something new from regular life, call it a startup or group or passion. The first thing that you face is criticism, you have to walk the path alone, until you reach a milestone. At this junction you will attract more like minded people, then magic happens, the efforts proliferate from here.

In the last 5 years, countless parents, dr, healers did their little things to unmeasurable things to keep the community alive either by take up a task, or connecting us to right dot or motivating us or sharing their resources. It is time to go back in time and find those lovely souls, who deserves a big applause. Now is the time to say You are awesome!

It does not matter if they delivered or not, because, we believe in ancient script that says not to look for results. But we would like to appreciate their sincere efforts.

Following are few souls nominated by core team and my own assessment. Moving forward we will do this ritual of thanking key parents every year.

👉 Dr. Lakshmy
For her committed service to arrange swp every month. When every dr in town is turning swp into outreach plan. She is someone who believed the cause.

👉 Ojas a.k.a Lakshmi
She did an extraordinary job in turning this group into a home-remedies platform in earlier days, single handedly managed all groups 24×7. Even now, she is part of various FB groups and whatsapp groups attracting like minded parents.

👉 Sri Nandhini
She was the first parent to broaden the whatsapp group into a parent-made home remedies. Later and till date, is part of every projects. Name it HLP Store or Nalla group, her involvement at various level is inevitable.

👉 Divya
A committed parents who helped the group open into various dimension with her question of the day post and later she took charge of translation group. Till date, she and various parents have send many audio notes, translation etc. She is there at every level of the community project.

👉 Ananth
A parent who does all the odd and undoable task. His commitment at early stage of our stores project (manual invoice) and A2. is commendable. He is part of all most all projects for the community.

👉 Anusha
A parent who took an impossible task for talking to huge number of parents in our group to collect feedback. This data helped to make a strategic decision in maintaining the quality of the group. Needless to say, the first two webinars, and other projects.

👉 Priydarshini
She set a new benchmark for admins. In fact she is only person whom you can count for all old interesting post. Now she is a key part of this good cult.

👉 Rakhi
First parent who took responsibility of actually organizing the swp accounts. Single handedly she was maintaining the accounts in a stage when tracking parents was almost impossible. She did an amazing work in tracking parents who vanished from group to make sure they are committed to the cause.

👉 Arthy, Sandhya & Esha
Join the accounts team, we have till date never had a conf call. Yet, this is one group that was active and kept the project running till date.

👉 Yamini
Needless introduction, a parent who added immense knowledge of parenting and education into the group. Helped us by sharing some new ideas and feedback studying other groups related to special child & parenting. Beautifully capturing the moments into newsletter.

👉 Ishani
A committed parent with her expert tips on parenting, hand holding social media of SWP fb page. A parent who constantly looking to showcase our group at various external circles. She single handedly executed udaipur event in collaboration with round table, women’s circle and flern.

👉 Saranya
Current home remedies and receipe expert in our group. Always willing to experiment with new recipes and making sure parents query are answered with her home remedies.

👉 Suja & Sujitha
A parent would could jump on all ad-hoc project when needed and good admin who too stores most of the important notes.

👉 Anupama
Came up with a first social media plan for swp and HLPstore projects.

👉 Tanushree
Came up with a plan to refine our stores website. She along with few parents are doing to upscale the look  in terms of content and visuals.

👉 Neeraja
Not many know her, She almost completed swp accounts into an android app. Due to technological challenges we had to drop this 1 year of hard work. She and her husband also stepped into audio translation of siddha book at critical situation.

👉 Roopa
Needless introduction for her regular contribution of shlokas, stories to make our kids learn ancient language and implant spiritual thoughts in their mind.

👉 Anand
A parent who shared his healing wisdom with indian classical acupuncture and body-mind-spirit audio lessons.

👉 Savithri
A parent who handles all our youtubeing our video such as shlokas or anand ji’s lesson. Being in US complimented us in many ways, the work was happening around the clock.

👉 Vijaya Reddy
A humble spiritual parent, who did a great work in feedback team. Did a great contribution in eliminating 1 dangerous white, salt. It if because of her the salt donation project is running.

👉 Rajashaker
He is back bone to stores project. Without him, the team’s hard work and research would be in paper alone.

👉 Seethalakshmi
Parent contributed a lot of recipes in nalla group to promote the use of traditional food. In the earlier days, she did an amazing work to keep the Community Store project alive.

👉 Yazhini & Chitra
For regularly take up the translation work and delivering on time.

👉 Sri Ram
Parent who has home remedies for all most all basic illness. He regularly contributed herbal gardening blog.

👉 Hridya
Notably she identified rare Ayurveda books and shared them to Dr Lakshmy and team. An active parent in herbal gardening.

👉 Swati Tomar
A parent spend countless nights in designing Swarnaprashana information architecture of our blog. She also regularly keep updating good products in market into store’s intelligence. A poser house of ayurvedic remedies.

👉 Tejaswini
Outstanding contribution in the earlier days of newsletter and content.

👉 Anusha Hemanth
High energy parent who would jump into any ad-hoc project. She also connected our products to various retails and export opportunity.

👉 Mahendra
He helped the team with proper custom made box to make sure the initial days Chyawanprash was delivered to parents undamaged.

👉 Jerry
A parent who is broadcast, who till date supports us by making blue cap arka bottle.

👉 Smitha Ravi
For opening the door of parenting category in our blog. She did a brilliant job in patiently connecting all data over internet and consolidating it for other parents.

👉 Ruchi Gupta
She did a unique approach in helping Community Store to promote in their community by putting up a stall  and the value added products made by her. All she did without the knowledge of the team as a gesture.

👉 Aruna
Oldest member and a dear friend, for her unconditional support for people who are in need with her NGO. Always a good connected to quality likeminded parents into our community.

👉 Amruta Zhope
She was kind enough to share her late grandfather’s diabetic herbal medicine to help other parents in our community.

👉 Ashwini Hanji
She went extra miles to source some of the natural food ingredients for HLP Store’s experiment in native varieties. She also took daily extra time in early days to publish all home remedies in to blog. She used to work after school hours. (she is a CS teacher in KV)

There are many good souls in our group who made us what we are today.

Watermelon Granita

Watermelon Granita:
—————————

Ingredients

Watermelon – deseeded and cut into slices
Lemon juice – 1 to 2 tbsp
Sweetener – honey/sugar (not required if watermelon is sweet enough)
Mint leaves – 8 to 10 leaves

Method

In a blender, crush together all the above ingredients into a slush consistency ( use pulse option, don’t make into juice consistency). Freeze in a closed container for 3 hrs. Take it out and crumble using a fork. Again freeze till serving time. While serving, take it out and serve immediately.

Narthangai / Citron Fruit leaf Powder

 

Ingredients:

Narthangai/ Citeron Fruit leaf – 1 cup ( centre nerve of the leaf removed)
Coriander seeds – 1/4 cup
Red chilly – as needed
Hing – little
Dry coconut – 1/2 cup
Tamarind – little
Salt

Method:
Remove the centre nerve from the leaf and cut into small pieces. Then can be dry roasted in shade or dry roasted in an iron kadai in medium flame.

Then dry roast all the other items individually and allow it to cool.

Then add all the items to a mixer add salt and grind it to a fine powder.

Cool it and store in a air tight container.

Author: Saranya

I’m HomeMaker and a mother of 1 year old baby girl. I have 6 yrs of IT experience with Accenture and IGATE and currently taken break to take care of my little one. I have an interest towards home made ancient recipes which is very healthy for kids and adults and hence started preparing all those at home and thought of sharing the same with all parents.

Ragi Milk shake

Ragi Milk shake

Ingredients

Ragi flour – 2 tbsp
Water – 1/3 cup
Cocoa powder – 1 tbsp
Milk – 2 cups
Jaggery powder – as required

 

Method:
Take ragi four and water in a pan and mix well.
Add cocoa powder and mix well to remove lumps.
Then Heat the mixture in medium flame, keep stirring until the mixture becomes thick.
Remove it from heat and let it cool.
In a blender add 1/2 cup milk and add the cooked ragi mixture and jaggery powder and blend till smooth.
Add the remaining milk and blend again until smooth. If needed filter it and serve chill.

Author: Saranya

I’m HomeMaker and a mother of 1 year old baby girl. I have 6 yrs of IT experience with Accenture and IGATE and currently taken break to take care of my little one. I have an interest towards home made ancient recipes which is very healthy for kids and adults and hence started preparing all those at home and thought of sharing the same with all parents.