Intelligence

The problem isn’t one spoonful of sugar. It’s what happens when food becomes something we have to fear. “Can I give my child jaggery?” “Is mango too sweet for a toddler?” “I don’t give my child any sugar at all. Is that okay?” These are some of the most frequent questions I hear in my feeding consultations. Lately, the anxiety goes even deeper: “If I let them have a piece of cake now, won’t they get addicted to sugar?” It is completely understandable why parents feel this way. We are …

The number on the scale tells you far less than you think. “My child is so thin.” “She’s not gaining enough weight.” “Everyone in the family keeps telling me he looks tiny compared to other kids.” This is easily one of the most frequent concerns I hear in my consultations. Often, the anxiety doesn’t even start with the child. It starts after a well-meaning relative, neighbor, or classmate’s parent drops a casual comment about their body size. Weight feels measurable and definitive because it gives us a concrete number. But …

During a recent consultation, an exhausted mother looked at me and confessed, “He eats everything at home, but the second we stepped into the airport, he lived entirely on plain crackers and three bites of a banana for two days straight. I reassured her immediately: absolutely nothing. Traveling with kids taught me and countless parents I counsel that normal home routines completely fly out the window the second you leave your doorstep. Between flight delays, motion sickness, and hotel rooms with zero cooking facilities, travel feeding isn’t about serving picture-perfect …

There’s something about the monsoon that changes the way children want to eat. The weather gets cooler. The evenings feel slower. Suddenly, warm food becomes much more appealing. Parents start looking for something beyond the usual dal-rice and paratha. At the same time, monsoon often brings its own challenges. Appetite can fluctuate, routines change, and children seem to ask for more snacks while spending more time indoors. This is when I like to keep food simple, warm, familiar, and nutrient-dense. You don’t need elaborate recipes. A few everyday Indian ingredients …

Whenever I talk to grandparents during feeding consultations, there is a recurring theme that almost always comes up. They look at the daily menu- polished white rice, ultra-processed wheat flour, packaged breakfast cereals and quietly ask: “Where did all our traditional grains go?” They remember a time when the kitchen smelled of freshly roasted jowar rotis, warm bajra khichdi during the winter, or fragrant red rice cooked on slow heat. Over the past few decades, our urban kitchens have slowly narrowed down to just two primary staples: wheat and polished …

One of my absolute favorite moments during nutritional consultations is when a well-meaning parent looks at me earnestly and asks: “Should I be buying imported blueberries for my baby?”Or organic quinoa. Or chia seeds. Or some incredibly expensive, hard-to-find fruit they saw a lifestyle influencer post on social media. I usually smile before asking a much simpler, gentler counter-question: “Have you bought any fresh mangoes or jamuns from your local cart this week?” There is almost always a long pause. Somewhere along the way, we have inadvertently started believing the …

This is one of those clinical conversations that almost always begins with a completely different headline. A parent books a feeding consultation with me because their toddler has suddenly stopped eating well. Or because they are constantly exhausted. Or because their sweet, easygoing baby has turned unusually irritable and angry over the last few weeks. Somewhere along the line during our intake assessment, I start asking about their daily diet: How much milk are they drinking? Are they regularly consuming iron-rich foods? Have they had a routine blood check recently? …

This is one of the most delicate, politically complex conversations I ever have with parents. Not because it’s about food but because it is fundamentally about family dynamics. The messages usually sound something like this: “My mother-in-law keeps force-feeding him behind my back when I go out.” “My parents think I’m actively starving my baby because I refuse to chase her around the room with a bowl.” “Dadi gives biscuits and sweets every single afternoon, right before dinner, even though I’ve repeatedly asked her not to.” Underneath the frustration of …