☀️Dispatch: 🍭Pink candy floss, 🌾Mindful eating 101, 🔮Climate Fiction, and 🏞️Field notes from Kasavanahalli Lake
how food makes you feel?
(#1) 🍭Pink candy floss
Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala and now Himachal Pradesh has banned cotton candy due to the presence of hazardous colouring agent, namely rhodamine B. Although, the said chemical is already banned banned in food items due to potential health risks under Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, a lot of vendors use for its pink hue in cotton candy and gobi machurian. Recently it has been linked to cancer and has resulted in the ban of food ideas that use this chemical. A familiar childhood candy for most 90’s kids ( all kids) might now become a nostalgic memory.
(#2) 🌾Mindful eating 101
Notes from herbeshwari’s (Dr.Poorvi Bhat) ‘Mindful eating 101’ workshop:
Understanding food complexity beyond nutrition: food is more than building blocks, just as we are more than cells coexisting (look at food outside of calories - genetic preferences, what our ancestors ate - crave, different memories around food. Two foods with the same nutrients can taste completely different, one’s emotional connection to food varies from person to person and the fact that digestion depends on each person’s body capacity and needs and to understand that no food is made of one component- it is made of many nutrients in varied ratios.
According to her, the Herbeshwari way of looking at food tells us:
Every meal you have should have a starch element (rice, rotis, millet etc) , a green element ( micronutrients + flavour) and a gravy element
The most important factor is how food makes you feel- reflecting and being mindful about food’s impact on body and mind.
Stress VS Pleasure eating
Stress eating (you do not feel happy at all/ it does not make your problem go away)
Pleasure eating (you usually feel happy at the end of it/ it is associated with good memories)
Making your diet sustainable:
Moderation is key
Restrictions lead to overeating which leads to guilt only to lead again to restrictions
Eating should be a pleasurable activity. If you are not enjoying food, ask yourself why.
Food freedom means giving yourself permission to eat BUT also to say no when you truly do not want to eat.
Poorvi’s instagram is filled with all kinds of information and wisdom. Please check out her Instagram page for more details.
(#3) 🔮Climate Fiction
A not-so-new genre enables writers to imagine beyond the obvious.
Kalpavriksh and Global Tapestry of Alternatives are hosting a series of dialogues and conversations on themes relating to South Asia in particular - seeking to find the interface between fiction, academia and activism. They have released two episodes already and the next one is coming up with Amitav Ghosh.
Climate change fiction has come to the fore in recent times as an offshoot of science/speculative fiction, as a way of coming to terms with the reality of global warming and climate change and the likely repercussions for vulnerable species and communities most likely to be affected in the near future. As extrapolations from current trends, such imaginative responses have offered a significant critique of techno-science and the dominant development paradigm and opened out conceptual alternatives and pathways to transformation.
Imagine 2200 is Grist’s initiative to invite writers to write stories on Climate Fiction is another exciting thing to peruse.
Imagine 2200 is a climate fiction initiative, engaging writers from across the globe in envisioning the next generations of climate progress. Whether built on abundance or adaptation, reform or a new understanding of survival, these stories provide flickers of hope, even joy, and serve as a springboard for exploring how fiction can help create a better reality.
We aim to showcase stories of creative climate solutions and community-centered adaptations, with an emphasis on uplifting voices and cultures from the communities most impacted by the climate crisis. Imagine 2200 is an invitation to writers and readers alike to imagine a future in which solutions to the climate crisis flourish and help bring about radical improvements to our world.
What do you think about climate fiction? Tell us in comments.
(#4) Field notes from Kasavanahalli Lake
Situated far away from the traffic-laden main roads of Haralur and Sarjapur roads in Bengaluru, Kasavanahalli lake is a treasured and preserved sanctuary. As the past resident of the city who lived in close proximity to the lake, I was disappointed to have not discovered it earlier. Better late, than never!
A man-made lake dependent only on rain water, this water body in the heart of the urban landscape is a testimony to citizen action in protecting surrounding ecosystems. Mahadevapura Parisara Samrakshane Mattu Abhivrudhi Samiti (MAPSAS), a volunteer organisation acts like guardians to the lake and take charge of any/all responsibility of restoring and preserving the habitat. However, it’s not as simple as it might seem. One of the volunteers with MAPSAS elaborated on the challenges like encroachment - wherein nearby construction projects on private land disrupt the lake or how newer localities often think of the lake as a dumping ground for sewage etc. Another prominent challenge is pollution - if the lake gets any dump of sewage or chemical, it is extremely tough to heal.
The lake has many stakeholders - the resident community, the people who use it for leisure, the people who use it fishing , BBMP and the forest department. BBMP manages cleaning the lake, and the forest department takes care of the land on the periphery but most of the work is done by volunteers and the funds raised by them. These small pockets of movements gives me a lot of hope - maybe there's enough possibility to look in my backyard and take charge of something, of anything and that for now is enough.
Between the roadside entrance and main entrance of the lake, there a huge patch of land occupied by kids running around in blue uniforms. The area is given to a government school, and to imagine studying next to the lake is a page out of my book on a how a utopian world looks.
And that’s everything for this week.
dhoop is an independently published magazine, so producing and selling the print versions of the magazine is the only way to share our work. However, through this series of ‘Some dhoop for you!’ newsletters, we want to come to your inbox and share some insightful, fun, and meandering thoughts on the discourse around the different elements that make dhoop. If you learned anything new, the best way to support us and this newsletter is to share it far and wide.
Oh, if you haven’t bought the Issue #2 of the magazine — get it now!
And please become a paid subscriber if you like what we do!