In an ideal world all of us are rational. Producers are responsible and consumers are discernible. But the world is not ideal. Many decisions we make as consumers are impulsive, addictive and unsustainable. In fact, many a times, we ourselves don't make decisions - advertisements do them for us.  

Our life is controlled by brands. That itself is not bad but many brands – especially, in the case of food and medicine, make are bad – i.e, chemical and addictive products. A soft drink is nothing but a chemical drink. It is addictive. The advertisements and promotional activities the soft drink brands also create a psychological effect in us making us think that consuming cola is a cool thing to do in life.   

India is fast becoming a major market for soft drinks, and many other products for which India’s culture has to be changed. Food brands want India to break away from its traditional lifestyle and life habits. That’s what brands try to do with their advertisements.
In addition, they increase the reach of their products – you can find a cola even in a remote shop of the remotest village. They are made more profitable for shopkeepers to sell. As a result, the shops that were selling a nannari sarbath are too happily opening a can of cola for you. 
Sarbaths made of nannari, avaramboo, and vettiver are natural. They are health promotive. But they are not within the reach, and often times, we – “the fashion conscious and the status conscious” - are not readily inclined to consume them. 

Another case in point is health drinks. Adding curry leaves and spinnach in your daily food can give you more calcium than consuming jars and jars of health drinks. But thanks to advertisements, and the aspirations to improve the social status, we go only for "health" drinks that are more costly and less effective than natural produce like fruits and vegetables.     
In the fast paced world, who will have time for seekai powder or a green gram powder or whole green gram powder for cleansing our body? We grab a chemical, unhealthy and environmentally unsustainable alternative - a soap. A soap in fact does more harm to your skin than good. Same is the case with your tooth powder or paste, your facial cream or cosmetics, and your skin lotions. But since they have become a part of our daily life, people do not think before continuing to make the same choices. 

But lose no heart. The world is not completely irrational. People from across the world are going back to the basics. Here is an interesting video explaining how using a small twig (of an African tree) can help us contribute to green and healthy living. Embrace traditional lifestyle, whenever possible.

Open defecation is the number one health issue in developing countries like India. What is open defecation? As it has come to mean today, it is about practicing defecation in open, public, and congested urban and semi-urban places that contaminate soil, and infect water ways, and thus become breeding ground for diseases.

Around the world, over six lakh children die of diarrhea and pneumonia every year, and about 88% of them can be linked to water contamination and sanitation issues. However, open defecation can be “social”, and good for health and nature. Globally, over 1.1 billion people are estimated to practice open defecation – about 60% of them are in India. But open defecation, as it is practiced in many rural settings, take place in airy, open, and natural places – near agricultural fields, water bodies, and foothills of forests that are home for insects, scavenger animals and birds.

In this context, open defecation can be better called as “social defecation”. It is good for society, health and nature. How? It is “social” because usually people of same gender, and maybe of same age group, defecate together during wee hours, whiling away their morning time chatting, and discussing. The water required for cleaning the body, after defecation, is less than half a litre per individual. Sometimes green leaves were used to wipe out waste from the body. Can there be an eco-friendly napkin better than leaves!?

Sociologists observe that bathing in common places (such as rivers, ponds or wells) in groups works as a social therapy, as people use the time to share their minds, give vent to their feelings and build friendships. All these happen in social defecation, and hence it is good for health.

Social defecation is good for nature. Human waste is food for many other living forms, great manure for plants, and plays an important role in eco-system services by way of helping seeds of consumed fruits see light of the day.

People that think open defecation is bad agree that western toilet and its centuries old flush system wastes too much space and water and hence it is not suitable for India, which is a tropical country. On an average, it takes about 10 litres of water per use of toilet. Imagine the colossal waste of water if all the 7 billion population starts using it every day – about 70 billion litres of water. Thankfully, 2.5 billion people do not have, use or access to toilets.

Closed toilets also affect the psych of people. Today, people shy away from cleaning the waste of their own children, and physically disabled or ailing elders. One of the reasons is that having brought up in houses with closed-toilets, they have developed a sense of disgust over human waste.

The government is spending about Rs 1,500 crore every year to construct public toilets, subsidize the cost of construction of toilets and septic tanks in houses, and to better sewage system for toilets. But we need new eco-friendly solutions. Many people and organizations are working on new technologies – bio-toilet is one of the promising ideas.

Due to all these effects, open defecation may become a thing of the past in the future. But hopefully there will be more people to write and tell how villages in India once had practiced social defecation, and eco-friendly toilet “paper” that were good for health, nature and culture. 

Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish essayist, once said, “Man is a tool using animal”. In our daily life, most of us use countless number of tools. We use vehicles to reach office, pen to write letters, wrist watches to check time, and so on. Every product or service, at the end of the day, is a tool.

Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School wants businesses people understand this simple fact. He rightly observes that people only “hire” a product to do a job – for instance, customers do not want to own a six-inch drilling machine but what they want is only a six-inch hole.

But many businesses try to sell their “solutions” (their products) to people who do not have problems. Mobile phone is a good modern day example of this. Using heavy advertising, promotions, and creating aspirational value, companies sells feature-rich phones to everyone. Even in rural India, people who earn low wages, save whatever they earn for days and months, often neglecting to spend for their basic needs, to buy high-end smart phones. So, it is tempting to define mobile phone as “is a man-using tool”.

No doubt, mobile phone is a highly useful tool for professionals like doctors or fire fighters who should be informed of an emergency instantly. Why would an accountant or a student need one? Even if we need, do we really need the so-called smart phones that come with camera, calendar, torch light, radio, music, audio recorder, TV, projector, and what not. 

Here the question is who is smart? The company that sells phones that we don’t need? Or the consumer, who parts his/her precious earnings to buy something just to impress others? You know the answer very well!

We may think that smart phones have helped us stay connected with our family and friends all the time, even when we are at work. However, studies show that we are losing our hard-earned rights for eight hour work with mobile phones. A recent global study, 'Well-being of the Mobile Workforce', suggests that besides the loss of work-life balance, "connected" professionals suffer sleep disorders, higher stress levels and reduced productivity gains.” The study covered over 5,600 mobile enterprise employees at 1,100 companies worldwide.

It is in this backdrop that, we at Aravindh Herbal, brought back the humble landline telephones, and freed our staff from working after office hours. Today, in our office, there is a landline phone on every desk. Though our customers can leave their message or orders round the clock using our Interactive Voice Response System, our staff can be contacted only during office hours.  Let us use tools and do not let tools use us.

Few days ago, the Ministry of Environment & Forests, banned mining, quarrying, major construction, and setting up of certain types of industries in and around about 37% of Western Ghats, the mountain ranges that are identified as the hottest ecological hot spots by UNESCO. This is good news for people especially of Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, whose health and wellbeing depend largely on the bio-diversity of Western Ghats.

Not just Western Ghats, in general, the territories of south Indian States like Tamil Nadu are rich in biodiversity. Western Ghats accounts for just about 5% of India’s land, but it is home for over 5,000 species (or about 30%) of high plants in the country.

In urban areas, people intensively plant trees in small areas. This phenomenon is came to be known as “square foot gardening”. The idea is to grow more in less space. It can be said that when God tried His hands in square foot gardening, he chose Tamil Nadu, because, terrestrial biodiversity, the degree of genetic, species and ecosystem variations, tends to be the highest in this region, even among the south Indian States. One of the indicators of Tamil Nadu’s rich herbal treasure is the traditional knowledge of people about herbs, and their contribution to India’s traditional medicinal systems including Siddha and Ayurveda.

One of the indicators of Tamil’s knowledge of herbs and Tamil Nadu’s herbal treasure is the fact that Tamil language has more words for herbs than any other language in India or the world. (Among over 1,22,000 vernacular names for herbs listed by this online database, Hindi, Kannada and Telugu put together account for about 42,000 herbs. Sanskrit itself has only about 20,000 words. However, Tamil alone accounts for over 41,700 vernacular words.) 

If you happen to be in Tamil Nadu, all you have to do is take a walk in a barren land and pay close attention to the ground, you could find a rich variety of plant species even within small areas. Our own factory and office is located in the foothills of Western Ghats, at Rajapalayam, surrounded by large swathes of barren, uncultivated lands. 

As shown in the photograph, one square foot of land has about eight different plant species including plants with rich medicinal value, including Kolunji, Perkannuppullu, Pal perukki, and Kurunthotti. 

It is our duty to conserve our biodiversity and see to it that it is protected from narrow economic interests. 

Sitting on floor in an archetypal position such as squatting and kneeling can reduce the incidence of musculoskeletal distress. Once squatting and other forms of floor living – squatting, kneeling, crawling, etc on floor - were seamlessly weaved into everyday life.

However, our modern society does not seem to appreciate the importance of floor time for health. In fact, sitting on floor is simply not possible. Our schools, colleges, and offices are not designed for squatting.  

With all sorts of furniture for all rooms, there is no place for squatting in our own residences. You cannot sit on floor to have your meal at a hotel – why hotel, even the daily “annathanam” (food offered at temples), especially in Tamil Nadu, are served in tables and chairs!

Furniture can serve as status symbols, but research shows that it is unhealthy. Sitting is the new smoking, says Mayo Clinic of the US, one of the world’s leading hospitals, echoing the well accepted view that sitting on chair for a long time is bad for health.

Hence, at Aravindh Herbal Labs, we create chair-less offices and offices with options for squatting. Quite recently we removed chairs at our training hall - our staff and employees take part in training programmes comfortably sitting on floor. 

This is in line with the mission we stand for “Going the traditional way” for healthy life.  Even today, all Eastern traditions honour the art of squatting – Japan’s seiza is famous among them. And people have started realizing the importance of floor living. Let’s “past forward” for a healthy life!

Winter is also the season of infectious diseases. But if there's Trikatu Churna (thirikadugu churnam, in Tamil) at home, help is at hand.
An Ayurvedic and Siddha medicine in powder form, Trikatu is looked upon as “winter mother”, for it takes care of one’s health like how a mother does. 

Made of three easily available ingredients: namely, sukku (Zingiber Officinale), milagu (Piper Nigrum), and thippili (Piper Longum), It protects us from the attacks of “rainy day” diseases such as fever, cough, and cold, among others. Trikatu Churna also epitomizes the philosophy and treatment approach of Indian traditional medicines. 

The three ingredients relate to three “doshas”: vata, pitta, and kapha that Ayurveda and Siddha are based on. The concept of disease, according to our traditional medicines, is that the imbalance of universal elements of air, fire, and water in one’s body is the root cause of all diseases. Among other things, environment of the outer world, can directly influence the composition of the three elements in our body.

Trikatu churna acts on the body to balance these three elements. Sukku acts on air, while milagu and thippili on fire and water, respectively. One spoonful of the churna a day - either in the morning (preferably, in empty stomach) or in the evening before going to sleep - is all you have to do to enjoy the healing touch of the winter mother. It can be taken by people of all age group (excepting infants). We can mix the powder with honey, to sweeten the mix. 

Usually, these three elements are mixed in equal portions in branded Trikatu Churna, available off-the-shelf in all traditional medicine stores in India. It is also affordable. However, the churna can be easily made by ourselves. In fact, we can make it in a customized way. For instance, if we know the air aspect of vata is in excess in our body, we can always increase the amount of the corresponding ingredient, in this case, sukku, in the mix, so that the vata gets balanced. 

Buy Trikatu Churna, not necessarily from Aravind Herbal :-), or prepare it yourself. Regular intake of it just for a week, will be enough for you to know the difference. Drop a line, if you need more help. Let us all be blessed with disease free winter.  

American author and relationship counsellor, John Gray wrote a book that went on to become one of the highest ranked non-fiction work published in the Nineties. The author says that men and women are different in many ways. Of course, there are views against this argument. 

However, it is almost impossible to deny the fact that the approaches of modern medicine (Allopathy) and traditional medicine (like Siddha and Ayurveda) are totally different. 

For, modern medicine is largely disease-oriented - you go to a doctor or take a pill only after your health breaks down. In traditional medicine, your food itself is your medicine. You take the prescribed food to prevent yourself from falling ill. The former appears in the picture only when there is a health breakdown, but the latter prevents breakdowns from happening. 

In modern medicine, the whole infrastructure - including drug companies, hospitals, pharmacies - are oriented to fix your health, but in the traditional medicine, the health infrastructure is there for you to remain fit. 

Of course, we cannot avoid modern medicine altogether. Let us not get into for and against arguments on different health systems - it is enough if we understand that fixing a breakdown is time consuming, requires a lot of resources, and drains your wealth - even the US cannot afford its own healthcare system. In contrast, maintenance - or prevention - is always better than break down. There are no economic losses and emotional sufferings. 

But there is a price for everything - to stay health, you have to invest your time for healthy lifestyle practices, and you also have to be highly disciplined.
 
Consider Siddha or Ayurveda as a collection of best food and lifestyle practices. They prescribe vegetarian and satvic food. They suggest you to have food only when you are really hungry. They ask you to have your supper of digestive food before sunset. The list goes on. As for lifestyle is concerned, they prescribe meditation and yoga asanas. 

We may not need special skills to follow these practices - but if we really want to avoid breakdowns and the sufferings that come with them, we have to invest time and effort for maintenance. Breakdown or maintenance, the choice is ours.

Words are marks of ideas and vocabulary is the best predictor of knowledge. It is said that Eskimos, people who have traditionally lived in cold Arctic regions have a large number of words for snow (especially, sea ice), because they naturally have more knowledge of snow than people in tropical regions. The same goes true with Tamils, who have a great repository of words for herbs or medicinal plants that are abundant in South India, especially Tamil Nadu. 

National Medicinal Plants Board has an online database of vernacular names for medicinal plants. A search for Tamil words for karuttulasi, a species of Tulasi plant, for instance, throws as many as 228 results. Among over 1,22,000 vernacular names for herbs listed by this online database, Hindi, Kannada and Telugu put together account for about 42,000 herbs. Sanskrit itself has only about 20,000 words. However, Tamil alone accounts for over 41,700 vernacular words.

Studies say that thanks to the distinctive characteristics of climate zones in Tamil Nadu, the soil has a rich variety of herbal plant base. Research shows that over one million organisms - of different types including microbes - live in one gram of soil, taken from most parts of the world. However, the presence of plant species per square foot of land are not uniform. Many believe that the population and diversity of medicinal herbs present per square foot of land in Tamil Nadu is more, when compared to any other parts of the world. 

But still is the new generation aware of the gifts of mother nature to Tamil Nadu. Home remedies - also known as paattivaithyam, naattu marundhu, and mooligai maruththuvam - are in the decline, and hence, many young students - especially those who study in cities - do neither know how a popular medicinal plant like Tulasi or Kuppaimeni looks like nor its medicinal values. 

Siddhars devoted a large part of their life in experimenting herbs and minerals and introduced formulations - from small herbal preparations to the potent medicines which have no expiry. However, their contributions are not taught to students, including those who study modern medicine. 

The result: It is difficult to come across an Indian doctor of modern medicine talk good about Indian traditional medicine, including Ayurveda. In the case of China, it is difficult to find a single Chinese doctor to talk ill of Chinese traditional medicine. It is high time we introduced contribution of our forefathers to medicine at least to students who study medicine.  

It is to be noted that around 70% of all new drugs introduced in the United States in the past 25 years have been derived from natural products (according to Journal of Natural Products), and more than half of all anti-cancer drugs introduced since the 1940s are either natural products or medicines derived directly from natural products.