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Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Sunday, September 6, 2015
World's oldest vegetarian restaurant still a hit in Switzerland
- PTI, Zurich |
- Updated: Sep 06, 2015 18:45 IST
File photo of Haus Hiltl restaurant, in Switzerland. (Picture credit: Wikipedia)
Haus Hiltl, the world's oldest vegetarian restaurant in Zurich, is still a sought-after eatery which offers a wide range of Indian dishes from Palak Paneer to Sabmbhar Vada.
Certified by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2012 for being the oldest continuously operational vegetarian restaurant in the world, it was founded in 1898 by some German immigrants as 'Vegetarierhem AG' to popularise vegetarianism as a way of healthy living.
India's former prime minister Morarji Desai was among those who visited the restaurant that is located in Zurich's Sihlstrasse. He had visited the eating joint during an official visit to the country.
"We have customers from all over the world, white to green, I prefer to say. They relish on a vast range of dishes and go back with the taste lingering in their mouth," Brigitte Hediger, who manages the restaurant on busy weekends, said.
It has become a never-miss eating place for foodies visiting the Swiss city, Hediger said.
The daughter-in-law of the founder Margarith travelled to New Delhi last century to learn more about vegetarian cuisine for which the country is famed. She learnt a wide variety of mouth-watering dishes in India and introduced them into the menu which are popular even now.
"We have on our menu a wide variety of dishes, delicacies and health drinks. They range from Indian to Greek, Thai to Lebanese and European to African. We never disappoint our customers and there would always be the dish they are looking for," Brigittee told PTI.
The eating joint, established in 1898 at a time when the vegetarians were dubbed as "grazers" by most in Europe, did not prove a success until its management was taken over by a tailor Ambrosius Hiltl a few years later.
Hiltl, who suffered from a disease which left him unable to continue as dress maker, was told by a natural healer that he could get cured if he renounces meat and sticks to a strict vegetarian diet. He practised it and got cured which turned him into a committed convert to vegetarianism.
Hiltl became the restaurant's manager in 1903 and later bought it with the support of his wife Martha Gneupel. It is now being run by the fourth generation of the Hiltl family.
"I never miss a meal here when I am in Zurich, though I am not a vegetarian myself. I always look for a change and here I get what I am looking for," said Ivana Quattrina from Geneva while having a plate of assorted Indian fritters.
For Indians looking for home food in Zurich, Hiltl has a wide range of choices. The menu includes a variety of curries, chutney and salads besides Sambhar Vada, Palak Paneer, Banana Madras and Indian Thali among others.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Sunday, June 28, 2015
What happens when you switch to only organic foods?
A family ate organically for 2 weeks, reducing pesticides in their bodies big-time. Here's why it matters.
This shows how quickly some pesticides can disappear from the body after
you switch to organic food. (Image: Screen shot from 'The Organic
Effect.')
A Swedish family that typically ate non-organic foods was chosen for this study, according to Fast Company. For one week, the five-member family ate normally, giving regular urine samples that were analyzed for 12 different pesticides. Then their diet was switched for two weeks to only organic food, and their urine was analyzed for the same 12 pesticides during that time.
After eating organics for just two weeks, almost all the pesticides that were found in their urine had disappeared.
The results, published in The Human Exposure to Pesticides from Food (the link will take you to the complete study in English) point out that the individual chemicals found before the family switched to organics are within the acceptable daily intake (p.17).
But what we don't know is how all these chemicals that have been found safe at certain levels on their own work in combination with each other. While it is “unlikely that a single substance would pose any risk to humans,” there is the possibility that “chemicals interact with one another to give a stronger or weaker effect than they would have individually” (p.19) For me, the takeaway from this study is that so much is still unknown. We put chemical pesticides on our food and they end up in our bodies, and most importantly, in our children’s bodies. We’re told they’re safe. But as these chemicals continue to be sprayed onto the foods that we eat, problems like food allergies, ADHD, diabetes and more are on the rise and some studies link them to food.The acceptable daily intake (ADI) value is the maximum quantity of a substance that a person can consume daily throughout his or her lifetime without this posing any risk to their health. ADI is based on animal studies and represents the highest dose that causes no adverse effects in the most sensitive species.
Is it really our food that's causing these problems, or is it what we’re putting on our food? Individual chemicals are tested and found to be safe, but they’re not studied in all combinations. Is it the long-term exposure to the combination of chemicals we’re putting on our food that is causing the rise in these health problems?
We don't know yet, but there may be reasons to suspect there's a problem.
If eating organically can reduce pesticides and the combinations of pesticides in our bodies, I’m going to choose foods grown with as few pesticides as possible for my family when I can.
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