About the Book
In this much-needed volume, Ms. Anna Powar delves deep into the meaning of ‘well-being.’ Lucidly and with passion, she present an analysis the incorporates a critical understanding of medicine, lifestyle, socio-political interactions and the effects of globalisation the dictate how we eat and are obliged to eat today.
Powar, a doctorate in Nutrition, has an impressive resume that is burnished by a pleasant and accessible writing style which permits her permits her to reach our to a wider audience. This book looks not just a food but at the broader implications of the changing lifestyle patterns that need fresh examination. She invites the reader on a journey that is an eyeopner, offering ‘food’ as an object of contemplation and offering a mid-course correction to our contemporary eating practices. If Darwin wrote about the survival of the fittest, Powar deals with those who may no be amongst the fittest but need to survive.
Powar deals with a wide range of issues, from the large shifts in populations away from traditional bases to immune disorders leading to food allergies, to pharmacies dispensing increasing quantifies of supplements instead of the friendly grocer filling our table fare. As she presents her case authoritatively, we come to realize that for a healthy body to survive, we need not only a healthy mind but a discerning one.
About the Author
Dr. Anna Powar, Phd in Nutrition, was born in Pune - Maharashtra, India, and has studied in many countries while she followed her father, a Government of India IFS. Dr Powar is a professional member of the AANC - the American Association of Nutritional Consultants since 1988. Dr Powar has developed her own vision on Nutrition, and she has developed a holistic approach to health. She believes that health is the happy outcome of the interconnectedness between the food we eat, our psychological make up and the changing environment we live in. The changing environment is jeopardizing the vital link between the food we eat and the culture we live in. Globalization is flattening our rich diversity.
Dr Powar cololaborates with many NGOs in Europe. In December 2008 she was faculty at Jeevan Vidyya Shivir - IIT - Hyderabad. In the same year 2008 she has released in India “Food ways” - “an Indian’s holistic perspective on Nutrition and Health” - International Book Distributors - Dehradun. From 2005 to 2007 dr Powar has been Faculty in the “University of Gastronomic Science” - an enterprise of Slow Food. Dr Powar has been Faculty the past 10 years at Navdanya, in the NGO Research Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology RFTSE of Dr. Vandana Shiva.
“Kal - Looking at the old with new eyes” is dr Powar’s latest book on food and nutrition.
Contents
Acknowledgments; Foreword; Foreword for Anna; Introduction; Part 1: Health - the six assumptions; Why do we eat; Metabolism; Our doors to the world: vision, smell, taste; The dance of life; Part 2: Content of Food: Composition Tables; Complete protein foods traditionally eaten around the world- the meats; The Fat containing Foods; Water, source of life or instrument of powar; Part 3: Grains, Roots and Tubers: The forgotten grains. Sorghum, millets, teff; The “official” carbohydrates: rice, corn, wheat; The pseudo-cereals: quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat; Roots and tubers. The non-grain carbohydrates; Vegetarianism; The great Legume family; Land Vegetables; Sea Vegetables; Part 4: Changing Lifestyles: Globalisation or “old” ways ?; Baby foods. Commercial or Traditional ? ; When Food turns from giver of Life to giver of illness; Street Foods become Fast Foods; The legends around Fruits - the old legends and the contemporary ones; How our emotions affect food choices - our own, our children’s and the family’s; Recipes for the heart. Food the connect with the forgotten child within us; The tragedy for autoimmune disease when we silence our human “body-ness”; Of Food and Festivals..stories from my Maharashtrian heart; Conclusion; General Notes; References; Glossary.