A REVIEW OF 50th EDITION OF PUNE FARMERS MARKET –A NUTRITIONIST PERSPECTIVE

I  never missed a chance to visit the Pune’s farmers Market by Karen Anand. Firstly given that I am a big fan of her work and it gives a chance to explore what’s new and trending especially the foods that would have a health benefit. This helps me to give an appropriate choice of market foods for my clients visiting my clinic for diet advice.

This time farmers market was held on the 3^rd and the 4^th of February at the Royal Palms, Koregaon Park.

Since it was a Saturday my soaper friend Kaajal and me decided to visit the venue around 5 pm in the evening so that we could spend an evening to do what we loved doing the most. So she was on the lookout for what’s trending in the soap making field and for me it was a treat to explore the place for what the market has to offer as far as food is concerned.  It took us a whole 2 hours to explore the market in depth before we decided to relax and enjoy the all-girls live band and some delicious menu offered by a few best restaurants who had a pop up stall there.

A few stalls that really caught my eye..

1. SECOND NATURE –

This was a product that had launched the entire range of cold press juices, nut milks and smoothies.  The juices are a combination of fruit and vegetable ones like the green juice which has green veggies and adding flavor to it by  a tinge of fruit. The red juice is the one that has beetroot carrots etc. with a tinge of fruit again, making the juices palatable. For me its very important that the product or juice in this case should be first tasty along with being healthy so that I am sure that my clients will also be able to enjoy it and not feel that diet is a punishment!

In the nut milks I tasted the pure almond milk, hazelnut coffee. The pure almond milk had no added flavor and could be used in place of cows and buffalo’s milk in coffees or tea or also in the smoothies, milkshake and the list can be endless. It tasted nice and nutty with the grittiness of the almonds retained which I really enjoyed. Since I am coffee lover I thoroughly enjoyed the hazelnut coffee, frankly could have the whole bottle at one go!

The Almond mango smoothie was thick and quickly struck my mind to offer this to my clients as a breakfast on the go option or for that matter even as a 4 pm snack or then a meal replacement at night if the day is too heavy with more calories consumed.

All the juices were in a handy 250 ml bottle and served at the right temperature.

 

I happened to get talking with the owners of the juice range and really found it unique that they take an effort to select the right raw material harvested at the right time directly from the farmers which adds an extra health quotient to the juice. WOW!

 

So all those who want to buy the juices its going to be available at a few stores like Dorabjees, food junction and Godrej natures basket. Hope they start with the subscriptions soon .

After spending about a good 20 mins in tasting all the possible juices I could possibly have, was  already feeling satisfied that I have got my dose of antioxidants for the day,  I finally moved on to the next spot.

2. THE BUTTERNUT CO.

Nut butters are lately ones of the favorite foods on my list, especially the almond butter.  The products which were on display were peanut butter with flavours like cocoa, honey and a variation in the texture like chunky peanut butter. The almond butter had variations like flaxseed almond butter, unsweetened cocoa almond butter, chunky roasted almond butter and plain almond butter. Also a similar range with cashewnut butters. The products were available in attractive plastic bottles and sachets. I liked the idea of the sachet you can have a small sample to taste and then go in for the larger quantity.  I picked up the unsweetened cocoa almond butter which cost me Rs. 450/- for 200g in a plastic bottle.  I loved the flavor or the roasted almond with the cocoa (use it as a spread with the toast), and the best thing of being sugar free meaning not even artificial sweetener added. I have become a big fan of this for these two reasons. Soon I would be trying it as a milkshake post workout option.  Just one thing is that needs to be kept refrigerated as it was quite thin at room temperature.

Product is available online.

3. FRUBITES – what an innovative concept. Freeze dried fruit bites no sugar added can be kept handy and carried anywhere hassle free. Often I wonder what to give my clients who are frequent travelers and are too sick to eat the food available at the airport or then worst in flight. This could be one of the practical solutions to the problem so that they can get the bite of health without really worrying about eating unhealthy.

SO the fruits that were freeze dried were mango, strawberry, chickoo, banana and pineapple. I tasted all expect for pineapple. Out of these mango were the best followed by chickoo, banana and strawberry I felt a little soft and chewy not too crunchy.

The product is available online.

4. RAYA– I found the market quite flooded with granola bars, nutrition bars and trail mixes with a mixture of flaxseeds pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds. I happened to visit this stall as it was just next to Frubites but intrigued me by one product which was healthy breakfast cereal mix made with rajgeera (amaranth) honey and mixed nuts just like a muesli could be added to the milk and consumed for breakfast. Also was a nutrition bar made with dry figs and granola with mixed seeds and desiccated coconut. Picked a 500g pack for Rs. 300/- which I felt I paid extra after I reached home!

 

Not too sure if the product was available online.

5. WELLNESS HOLIDAY- So detox holiday. Hmm sounded very interesting for being a nutritionist I am always on the lookout for places which will offer healthy tasty food.

So this place known as ‘The Waterfront ‘ is about  one hour distance from Pune at Mulshi dam offers wellness and spa services known as ‘wellness detox packages’ where they would be offering detox drinks soups and salads and a range of spa services as a price of Rs. 2500/- per day per person. This sounds like a good deal and would be experimenting it soon.

6. SAUCERY

This was a range of sauces and dips which is all natural. I tried out the basil pesto, caramelized onion, mushroom and pepper sauce, sun-dried pesto , hummus, aglio olio and many more. I felt some products can act as healthy dips to be used with bread sticks or with cut vegetables likes carrots, cucumbers, celery sticks baked nachos so that we do not indulge into unhealthy snacking.

I liked the taste of the products especially the mushroom pepper sauce, caramelized onions, hummus both the pesto and the best thing about the product is that it is free from preservatives.

This is a Mumbai based company and now the products are available in Pune at food junction, dorabjees and Godrej Natures Basket.

Product are also available online.

7. GARDEN BAR SALADS

Garden Bar serve different varieties of healthy vegetarian salads which they also deliver to your doorsteps.

They source vegetables directly from the farms and offer a wide range of salads for you to indulge into. They have monthly/weekly subscription plans which you can check on their website.

Out of all salads, Falafel salad and Taco salad are my personal favorites.

Other than this there were stalls put up by Pride of Cow, Raw pressery, Popmax (which is roasted and flavored makhanas). I have known about the product and the health benefits so just decided to skip the stalls.

 

All in all an evening well spent with my passion and liking towards health, so it’s always fun to mix work and pleasure.

DISCLAIMER- None of these promotions are sponsored.