For a long time, I thought I was eating healthy.
I cooked most of our meals at home. I used fresh vegetables. I avoided processed food. And I genuinely enjoyed cooking—I found joy in feeding my family with intention. But something shifted when I started learning more deeply about how food works in the body. I went from asking:
“Is this healthy?” to “Is this nourishing in a deeper way?”
That question pulled me into research on gut health. And that’s when I came across something that completely changed how I saw food:
"People who eat 30 or more different plant foods a week have better gut health."
Thirty! I paused.
I wasn't even sure I was hitting 15.
Sure, I was cooking fresh food every day—lots of dal, rice, sabzi, greens. But when I looked closer… it was the same rotation week after week. Mostly toor dal or split yellow moong, and a handful of the same vegetables— Cauliflower, cabbage, Tindora, Okra, Spinach.
And I remembered something my amma once told me, during one of her visits. She looked at what I was cooking and said, gently—but with her usual honesty: “Your meals are healthy… but it’s always the same 4 or 5 vegetables.”
At the time, I smiled and brushed it off. I was doing my best. But now, with everything I was learning about gut health, it hit differently.
Was I feeding my body, or was I just stuck in autopilot? Was my gut microbiome getting the variety it needed, or just comfort foods on repeat?
Somewhere in that process, I remembered something I’d heard years ago— A talk by Rujuta Diwekar on YouTube. She had spoken about the importance of eating a variety of dals and lentils. Not just for protein or nutrients, but to move beyond the habit of eating the same two or three over and over again. I don’t remember everything she said, and it wasn’t about gut health or the microbiome directly. But that part about rotating dals really stuck with me. And now, in light of the research I was reading, it made so much more sense.
I pulled out all the dals tucked away in my pantry: Horse gram, Masoor, Lobia, Green moon, Moth bean, Black chana, and I thought:
Why am I only cooking toor and moong every week when I have all of this?
So I started mixing it up. Slowly, a pattern formed. Every Sunday, I’d sketch out what we’d cook that week — Not just to save time, but to intentionally rotate what we were eating: Different dals, different grains, different greens. That weekly rhythm became a ritual. And that ritual became a vision.
It planted the first seed of what would one day become Nourishfully.
Your Gut Doesn’t Need More Food. It Needs More Kinds.
One of the biggest shifts for me was realizing that healthy eating isn’t just about how much I eat—It’s also about how many different things my body has a chance to meet.
For years, I thought:
“If I eat a big bowl of spinach, that’s healthy.”
“If I use millets instead of rice, that’s a good swap.”
And yes, those are good choices. But the more I read about gut health, the more I started seeing food differently.
Our gut isn’t just counting portions.
It’s learning exposure. Even tiny ones.
A teaspoon of flaxseed, a few sprigs of methi in a dal, that sprinkle of ajwain in paratha. one curry leaf, a sliver of ginger, a pinch of fenugreek.
They may seem too small to matter. But they do.
Your gut notices. Your microbes learn.
That realization made me pause—and remember something deeper.
The Way Amma Used to Cook
Growing up, a regular lunch at home wasn’t just dal and rice.
Amma made: Pappu, one kura (vegetable), a rasam or charu, and curd—almost every single day.
Some days, there was a roti pachadi or a simple vadiyalu. On weekends or when guests came, the meal felt even more special—there would be perugu pachadi (chutney), pappula podi (lentil powder), a vepudu (deep fried vegetable), sometimes even paramannam.
At the time, I just saw it as our rhythm—a kind of tradition passed down from one generation to the next.
But now I wonder—
Was it just tradition? Or was it a kind of quiet intelligence?
Why were there so many components? Why were bitterness, sourness, spice, ghee, greens, roots, and seeds all woven into one plate? Maybe our ancestors knew something we’re only now beginning to rediscover.
Maybe gut diversity wasn’t taught — it was lived.
The Return of Pachadis, Podis & Pickles
As I started thinking about all this, I found myself coming back to our roots.
Pachadis and chutneys started showing up more often.
I began making podis again — Moringa, curry leaf, flaxseed, horse gram.
They weren’t new recipes. They were ones I had once paused, thinking I was simplifying life. But bringing them back felt like bringing wisdom back to the table.
They’re:
- Delicious (of course)
- Prepared once and used for weeks
- Deeply gut-friendly—full of herbs, spices, fiber, and even fermented ingredients
Sometimes, just a spoonful of chutney added five new plants to the meal. They became my quiet way of adding diversity, without turning meals into a project. So now, instead of asking:
“Did I eat enough vegetables today?”
I ask:
“Did I invite enough different plants to the table today?”
It feels lighter. More joyful. And honestly, more connected to where I come from. Because maybe the way our mothers and grandmothers cooked wasn’t just about custom. Maybe it was ancestral biology.
I’ve started cooking like my mother. 😄
Every Plant Is a Signal
The more I read and reflected, the more one idea stayed with me:
Food is not just fuel. It’s information
Every plant we eat is like a signal. A gentle nudge to the body. A new entry in the gut’s library of “what is familiar and safe.” Your gut is not just digesting—it’s learning. And the more kinds of plants you expose it to—grains, lentils, spices, vegetables, greens, herbs—the richer that learning becomes.
At first, this idea felt almost abstract. But then I started noticing the small things.
- If I added just a teaspoon of ajwain or jeera to a dish, that was one new signal.
- If I used mustard seeds, curry leaves, and fenugreek in a tadka—three more.
- If I paired spinach with sesame or made a quick chutney from roasted ridge gourd skin—that was a mini gut-nourishing bonus.
It wasn’t about making elaborate meals. It was about layering diversity
And once I understood that, I began to notice something else: There were so many foods I had quietly stopped making over the years. Not because they weren’t nourishing, but because life got busy…or they felt like “extra effort”…or I thought I was simplifying. But now, they started coming back to me.
Recipes I grew up with. Combinations Amma made. Greens I hadn’t tasted in years.
And in many ways, it reminded me of raising my kids.
When they were babies, we didn’t just hand them a whole book and expect them to understand. We gave them bits of language. We repeated words. We let them hear the same thing in different ways, in different moments. That’s how they built fluency and trust.
And in some quiet, beautiful way— that’s what our gut is doing too. Every plant is a word. Every repetition builds memory. And over time, your body learns not just to digest—but to understand.
Tiny Things with Big Impact
Why chutneys, tadkas, and small portions still matter? One thing I’ve come to love about this idea of exposure over quantity is that it completely changes how I see food. It means that even the smallest things matter.
A pinch of this.
A handful of that.
One spoon.
Half a leaf.
In the old way of thinking, it wouldn’t count.
Too little to matter.
Too small to be tracked.
But now? These tiny things are where the magic lives.
The Power of the “Side”
Take chutneys, for example. They’re never the “main” dish. But some of them are made with 4–6 different plant ingredients—
Roasted gourds, herbs, sesame, garlic, curry leaves, mustard, even tamarind.
Or podis: flaxseed podi, curry leaf podi, horse gram podi. Made once, used for weeks. Just a spoon at a time. Even your tadka— Jeera, methi, mustard, hing, curry leaves, garlic. That alone is 5–6 plant signals in a single tempering. None of these are large in portion. But all of them feed your gut’s vocabulary.
The Quiet Genius of Traditional Cooking
This is where traditional food really shines. It was never built on grams or protein calculators. It was built with taste, balance, rhythm, and quiet diversity. So when we: Use that last spoon of perugu pachadi, Crush a few moringa leaves into our dosa batter, Finish a meal with a bite of pickle and curd rice…
We’re not just eating. We’re offering our gut micro-moments of memory.
This is why every plant counts. Even the tiny ones.
This Is Why I Plan.
It didn’t begin with a fancy planner or a wellness goal. Honestly, it started when a friend casually asked me: “Hey, can you send me how your weekly meals usually look?”
So I sat down and wrote it out—just to share. And in doing that, I noticed something I hadn’t really seen before:
What I was cooking on repeat. What was missing? How limited or varied our meals actually were, when looked at across the week.
That moment planted the seed. What if I started planning my meals, not to control them, but to see. People often think meal planning is about control. Or calories. Or weight loss. But for me, it started with a very different question:
What is my gut actually experiencing from the meals I make?
Am I feeding it variety? Am I giving it chances to learn? Or am I just serving the same familiar foods, day after day, week after week—because it’s easy, because I’m tired, because it works? Meal planning became my way of bringing intention back to the plate.
Not perfection. Not complexity. Just… rhythm. Rotation. Diversity. A little more life.
Some weeks, I make elaborate thalis. Some weeks, it’s dal, rice, and a simple curry. And yes—some days it’s pasta or upma or even a pizza night with the kids. We enjoy salads, fusion meals, leftovers, and quick fixes. Life is full. But what changed is the intention I bring to the table. Even in the simplest meals, I now ask:
Can I add one more plant?
One more layer of nourishment?
One more quiet signal?
Let me be clear: I don’t go around tweaking every traditional recipe just to add one more green. Nope, I’m not about to sneak kale into Amma’s sambar just because it’s “healthy.” 😏
Some dishes stay sacred. And kale needs to stay in its own lane.
But yes — I spend a little time planning at the start of the week. And that small effort gives me so much back:
- No more decision fatigue at every meal
- I know exactly what to buy and what I already have
- If something’s missing, I ask—what can I make from my pantry?
- I cook more from what’s already at home, which feels grounding and waste-free
- Most of all, I feel peaceful—because I’m feeding my family with awareness, not pressure
- And little by little, I’ve started weaving in new ingredients too—
Not in a forced way, but in a way that feels curious, respectful, and quietly expansive. A new grain here. A forgotten lentil there. A green I hadn’t grown up with, now becoming part of our rhythm.
This Is Why Every Plant Counts
Every plant counts. Not just for nutrition. But for memory. For gut trust. For reconnection.
It’s why I built Nourishfully.
To hold space for a kind of cooking that doesn’t chase trends, but returns to the kind of food that remembers where we come from, and helps our body slowly, gently, learn what it needs to thrive.
Because this isn’t about replacing what you already know.
- Portion awareness still matters.
- Nutrient density still matters.
- Your body’s stage of life, activity, and needs still matter.
But something else matters too— Exposure. Diversity. Trust.
Your gut doesn’t just need the right amount of food— It needs a variety of kinds, a library of signals, a memory bank built from meals.
At Nourishfully, we’re not here to rewrite your approach to food.
We’re here to complete it.
To bring back the wisdom that got lost in the noise:
- That ghee isn’t just fat—it’s tradition.
- That a pinch of ajwain isn’t too little to matter.
- That a spoon of pachadi is a story your gut remembers.
This isn’t about more food. It’s about more kinds, more signals, more memory, more care.
Because in the end…
Portion feeds the present.
Diversity shapes the future.
Together, they nourish you.
And all of that…
Begins with one quiet shift: Asking, each week— “What new plant can I invite to the table?”
That’s how we nourish a gut. That’s how we nourish a family. That’s how we nourish…fully.