Eat Well, Live Well with Skulpt

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Let's be honest, I'm a foodie, a true blue one. If I can, I will stuff that n-th gulab jamun in my mouth. No force in this universe can stop me! Not even myself. However sometimes I do wish that the food was a bit healthier than just being oily or sugary. That way I could have more of the good things in life without worrying about becoming fat.

But that's not what reality is. Food makes you fat, okay may be not all food, but the unhealthy ones. You do have to hit the gym & workout hours to reduce those unwanted fat. However there is way to minimise the amount of fat you consume & ultimately reduce the strenuous gym sessions that you utterly hate. Yes, healthier foods do help. However there is a widespread belief that healthy food & tasty food don’t quite go hand in hand. I believed the same, until I was proven wrong.

Recently I was invited by Skulpt to their workshop of healthy food for healthier living, conducted by Chef Nivi Das, who promotes vegan food. Now vegan food & died is one of the recent fad among the westerners, & we keep thinking as if it's something very pricey & unavailable in our country. But if we look at our own food habits, majority items are derived from plants. If only we take away the dairy based products like ghee, paneer, butter, cheese & milk from our vegetarian dishes, we are left with basic vegan meal. & there are replacements for each of the items! We can replace cow milk with soy/coconut milk, paneer with tofu, ghee/butter with margarine & so on. In fact the change in taste will be hardly noticeable! This workshop was designed to show us how this can be achieved, cooking tasty yet healthy foods using such items. She demonstrated how a full course meal can be cooked up, within an hour or less, which included a starter, a main & side & desserts.

The items she cooked were as follows:

Tofu nuggets

(Replacement for usual chicken nuggets)

Pumpkin Risotto

(Cooked in chickpea broth & coconut cream)

Crepes filled with Spinach & sweet corn

(Soya milk used in place of cow milk)

Tapioca Mango Pudding

(Tapioca pearls & coconut + soy milk replaced the usual egg+milk combo)

Eggless chocolate brownies

Coconut Cream Spherical

(A molecular Gastronomy special)

To say the truth, I didn't expect the dishes to be half as tasty they turned out to be. Sure I'm a hardcore meat lover, & missed the chicken in the risotto, & the brownies seemed a tad bit chewy than regular egg based variants. But overall they were impressive in taste. & For anyone who is looking forward to embracing the vegan lifestyle for a healthier lifestyle such workshops & tasty foods would be a great eye opener.

Personally speaking, I may not turn a vegan anytime soon, but I'm up for vegan foods when they turn up on my platter.

The workshop was attended by actress Tanushree Chakroborty who's a regular at Skulpt. She also shared her insights about the importance of regular small meals as a means of maintaining a good eating habit. Also nutritionist Abhilasha Bavaria & fitness manager Prosenjit Biswas were present to share their views & recommendations. Some of the renowned bloggers of the city were present as well.

At the end of the workshop each attendee were handed a special gift hamper which contained a pack of health cookies & a dumb-bell among other things.

Skulpt has always promoted a healthy lifestyle with the balance of healthy diets & physical activities. This cooking workshop promoting vegan food is yet another milestone in their journey. I heartily thank the Skulpt management for inviting me over for such an eye opening session, all the best to the staffs & members for their future endeavours.

Happy working out,

Cheers!