Laddoos Are Liberating

The annual breast- feeding week (August 1-7) advocates the benefits of breast milk to the baby and the mother. The process of lactation is natural of course but there are a few things that can either enhance or come in its way.

Nutrition schools teach you that a lactating mother needs at least 500 Kcal more than normal. This is to let the mother recover from the physiological stress of delivery and the sleepless nights that come with having a baby. It also allows for a better return to hormonal balance and pre-pregnancy wei­ght and the extra energy that is required to produce milk.

In India, however, you don’t pop pills, shakes or simply eat more to achieve this state of energy balance. You work your way through it by mixing nutrients in the most delicious concoctions. Native cultures understand that science must be practical if it has to sustain real life, or else it’s lost in papers and labs.

Some of the ways in which dadi and nani rose to the occasion are:

• Gond laddoo: Made from a natural gum and mixed with nuts, it strengthens the spine and makes up for the loss of bone density during pregnancy.

• Aliv laddoo: Garden cress seed, a rich source of iron, mixed with coconut and coconut water. Makes up for blood loss during and post pregnancy. The coconut water literally squeezes all the bloating out of you. (Give it to your teenage daughter too—it beats pimples and PMS). Laddoos are not just tasty but can be eaten at any time, including the middle of the night without waking up the household. It’s a guilt-­free, disease-free way of beating midnight blues, and unlike chocolates and ice-cream it doesn’t show up on your waist line