The Goya Guide to Better Eating (& Better Living)

On the brink of a new decade of the 2000’s, it seems more important than ever to take stock of how our actions affect the environment – At Goya, we are constantly mindful of the question How can we be more conscious consumers? How can we eat better?

Download the guide as a PDF here.

While it can be argued that individual households being mindful of recycling, cooking with scraps, and generating less waste, isn’t what’s going to slow down climate change in any significant manner, these are nonetheless important steps to becoming a mindful cook and consumer.

It is, however, very clear that voting with your wallet is an effective way to have a direct impact on food systems. What is a food system? A food system refers to the structure and processes in place for feeding a community – this includes farmers, butchers, transportation companies, retail outlets and even the garbage collection system at the very end of the chain. A great place to follow the dialogue on food systems, is Edible Issues, our favourite place to read the signals.

Knowing where your food comes from is imperative to making more sustainable choices. As a consumer, seeking out food that is ‘good, clean and fair’ is one way to ensure that you are making an informed decision. Is the farmer growing your food getting a fair wage? Is the food you are eating good in quality? Is it tasty and healthy? Is the production of your food clean, and gentle on the environment? Is the food system good to all involved? To answer these important questions, one has to have a better understanding of the food system. Choosing to shop local and seasonal has a lower carbon footprint and supports local farmers who choose to farm sustainably. Produce eaten in season is also more nutritious and delicious. Making active choices to support businesses that are sustainable, fare-wage and organic, will go a long way in shaping a gentler food system.

Waste management is rapidly becoming a problem as urban India generates 62 million tonnes of solid waste every year. Of this, only 11.9 metric tonnes are treated, and 31 metric tonnes are dumped in landfills. Learning how to segregate waste at the source is a small but important step in ensuring that recycling takes place. Food waste is easy to compost and creates the perfect manure for your kitchen garden.

As sustainability and climate change have (rightly) become buzzwords, the amount of information and misinformation on these topics is staggering. It becomes more important than ever to stay informed, and to filter information through a more local lens; in many instances, the same findings that apply to a Western country will not be the case in India.

Cooking is without a doubt, a cog in the wheel of sustainability; it is the easiest way to make sure you are helping farms and shops that are striving to build sustainable businesses. Many farms now supply their fresh produce to homes, and if not, there are several organic stores around the country that stock farm produce. Farms also provide a wealth of information on which fruits and vegetables are in season, and also often have workshops to teach you how to grow a kitchen garden. If nothing else, they are live examples of building food security in your own backyard.

It is a luxury to have the time to cook elaborate meals, but with a little planning, simple, delicious home-cooked food is do-able for most. Meal planning is key in staying on track with your cooking plans for the week. Here’s our guide to meal-planning

To round off 2019, and begin the new year with a resolution to be kinder to the planet we live in, here’s a resource we’ve put together for you – a list of farms, brands and initiatives to help you be a more conscious consumer. These are farms in your region doing workshops, offering local produce and seeds; brands that we have worked with, tried and loved, and initiatives we deeply respect. We hope this list is one you will keep handy and share widely with friends and family.

Food Brands We Love

Slurrp Farm is an organic food company that heralded the movement to bring millets back to popularity. Run by Shauravi Malik and Meghana Narayan, products on offer include snacks, and meal-time options like chocolate millet pancakes and cereal. They are now available at 800 stores across 8 cities in India and the UAE. You can also shop for their products here.

Conscious Food has been around since 1990, promoting organic, natural (whole, unrefined and unadulterated) products like cereals, flours and grains, natural sugars, power packed snacks, seeds, nuts and cold-pressed oils. The website also has a ‘Recipe’ section that provides useful suggestions on incorporating their products into your meals in creative and delicious ways.  Shop here.

Akshayakalpa is a farmer-entrepreneurship initiative that helps farmers set up dairies, presently working with 160 farmers. They provide both financial and technical support in helping farmers set up automated/mechanised dairy farms; guiding them through the process of becoming an entrepreneur, from milking to marketing. Products on offer include milk, curd, buttermilk, butter, ghee, cheese, paneer and yogurt. You can shop for the products at all major supermarkets across Bengaluru. Alternatively, you can subscribe to have the milk delivered to your doorstep.

Black Baza is a coffee company that focuses on bio-diverse coffee. The idea behind Black Baza was to create a local, participatory and meaningful movement for coffee. Founded by Arshiya Bose, the company focuses on biodiversity-friendly coffee, while ensuring that coffee growers receive fair pay. Shop here.

Timbaktu Collective is a registered Not-for-Profit Organisation working for sustainable development in over 178 villages in the drought-prone Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. Working directly with 2,100 smallholder farmers, they also retail products such as honey, millet flour, and even pongal mix. Shop here.

Happy Roots works directly with 15,000 farmers to source and grow a wide variety of grains such as barley and buckwheat, that are then converted into delicious snacks by a women’s co-operative. Products on offer range from Whole Wheat Crackers to Buckwheat Gingersnaps. Shop for them here.

Theo Organics focuses on sustainable harvesting, and sources products from the Himalayan ranges. The company also provides employment to women in these regions through co-operatives. The products on offer include several varieties of honey, Himalayan pink salt, Rhododendron juice, and creamed honey spreads in flavours such as mixed berries and chocolate. Buy their products here.

Happy Hens sells organic, free-range eggs that are rich in Omega-6. Many of the hens are indigenous breeds raised on organically maintained pastures, and subsist on a diet that is free from antibiotics, hormones and synthetic growth promoters. Additionally, the packaging cartons are made from 100% recycled and bio-degradable materials. Happy Hens eggs are available in Big Basket and Foodhall outlets around the country.

Käse employs differently-abled women to make delicious, artisanal cheese in Chennai. At present, they offer 20 varieties of cheese, including mozzarella and haloumi. The cheeses are made from grass-fed cow’s milk and do not contain preservatives, stabilisers or emulsifiers. They also run a Cheese Club, a weekly/monthly subscription service that allows you to sample a wide variety of cheeses. Chennai folk, purchase the best cheese in town here.

Farms We Love

These farms live by doing – growing everything they need, entirely independent of urban systems. Visit them, support them, learn from them – they are breathing examples that food security is within arm’s reach.

Krac-A-Dawna Farm in Halasnur village near Mysore is an organic farm run by Vivek and Juli Cariappa. They sell produce to families in and around Mysore, and participate in the bi-monthly farmers' market in Mysore. Juli and Vivek together have created a working model for sustainable living, growing everything they need – grains, oilseeds, eggs, food, cotton, fibre, spices, paddy, millets, living off the grid for 30 years. They received the Krishi Pandit Award by the Department of Agriculture for best farming practices. Learn more here.

Solitude farm in Auroville, run by Krishna McKenzie, hosts regular workshops on growing your own food, conducts permaculture courses, and sends weekly baskets to customers in Pondicherry. Find more information here.

Timbaktu Organic run by Bablu Ganguly and Mary Vattamattam in Chennekothapalli, Andhra Pradesh, is a farmers' cooperative that supplies to organic stores around the country, and retails all varieties of millets, rice and pulses, nut butters and dosa mix. The Timbaktu Shop, located on the highway at CKP sees considerable footfall through the year. Our personal favourites are the ragi malt mix, and rock bee honey. Find the products here.

Vrindavan farm, outside Mumbai/Pune run by Gayatri Bhatia, grows and supplies heirloom and indigenous varieties of vegetables and spices. Their website also lists recipes to go with each ingredient, and the farm sells jams, preserves, tea and spices. We particularly love their moringa powder, roselle tea and sun-roasted tomatillos. Learn more here.

Krishi Cress farm in Chhattarpur, Delhi run by Achintya Anand, an ex-chef turned farmer, sells produce at the weekly farmers’ market hosted by the Earth Collective at Sunder Nursery, next to Humayun’s Tomb. Expect to find edible flowers, micro-greens, and red Japanese mustard, even potted herbs for your kitchen garden. Find more information here.

Yarroway Farm in South Karnataka is run by Anjali Rudraraju & Kabir Cariappa, second generation biodynamic farmers. They sell high-quality single-origin organic seeds, organic jaggery and cold pressed oils. The also have calendar guides to growing, planting and sowing on their website. Bookmark this one! Learn more here.

Roundstone Farm, Kodaikanal is an organic, biodynamic farm run by Simrit Malhi, where she holds regular workshops on permaculture and other subjects related to living sustainably. The farm produces many fruits like avocados, peaches, guava, starfruit, passionfruit, oranges, pepper and coffee. Find more information here.

Tijara Organic Farm, a self-sustaining bio-dynamic farm in Rajasthan is run by Sneh Yadav, a plant geneticist by training. They supply produce to restaurants like Annamaya and Andaz in Delhi, and also deliver baskets of fresh produce to homes around the region. Find more information about the farm here.

Little Flower Farms in Vagamon, Kerala, run by Kochuthresia Thomas, a retired botany professor from Trivandram, and Thomas John. The farm is focussed on restoration and regeneration, centred around a homestay that works to restore the degraded landscape. Guests can buy organic spices, jams, vadagapuli and bilimbi, pickles, pandan leaves, ghee, candied orange peel, hot oil with ghost pepper, and plants for their kitchen garden. Visit the website here.

Kerehaklu in Chikmagalur run by the Ajoy, a 4th generation coffee planter, and his two sons. Kerehaklu is easily one of the most informative Instagram accounts on coffee growing, and plantation life. Their home-stay is another great way to understand life on a farm. Kerehaklu will soon be retailing their coffee locally. But in the meantime, they supply pepper, avocado, mango-ginger and shahtoot mulberries to customers in Bengaluru. Learn more here.

Rosie and Peter's Assagao Kitchen in Goa has been built on the principles of permaculture. While they do not sell their produce, they encourage learning to grow your own. Surplus produce from the farm is shared with friends and neighbours. In a recent interview, they explain: “We want to see them all growing their own food; we want to see the landscape change, not our bank balance.” Learn more about Rosie and Peter here.

Initiatives We Love

No Food Waste based out of Coimbatore, run by Padmanaban Gopalan, Dinesh Manick, and Sudhakar Mohan, scour marriage halls, institutions and homes that have excess food, collecting to donate to the needy. The team conducts a quality check on the food when they are called to a venue for pickup. The food is then packaged and transported to previously identified 'hunger spots,' where it is subsequently distributed. They are presently active in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. If you are not in any of these locations, but want to contribute, one way to do so is by sharing your birthday with a donation.

Know Your Fish is a resource that is designed to encourage and empower consumers to eat seafood responsibly while building an ocean-friendly lifestyle. This team of scientists and marine ecologists have created a calendar (that you can download here), based on decades of marine research, to help consumers make choices sensitive to the oceans. The calendar carries information on what the fish-breeding seasons are, and what species are affected as collateral damage during fishing, to help consumers make ocean-sensitive choices while buying fish.

We hope that the Goya guide to better eating and better living serves as a starter kit, a recipe, or even just as inspiration to think more deeply about the choices you make this coming year; in your homes, when cooking for yourself and your loved ones, or when you’re out at a supermarket, trying to decide whether you want to buy those imported apples. We encourage you to join the movement to eat more consciously, and we’d love to see how you’re incorporating these ideas into your own lives. If you’re so inclined, please use the #howtoeat to tell us how you're going to eat better/ cook better this year.

All photographs by Aysha Tanya.

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