What is Sooji(Semolina) made of?

Semolina is coarsely ground grain, usually wheat, with particles mostly between 0.25 and 0.75 millimetres in diameter.

In Northern India, it is known as Suji; in southern India, rava. In much of North Africa and the Middle-East, it is made into the staple couscous or kuskus.

In South India, semolina is used to make such delicacies as rava dosa and upma. A popular dessert in Greece ("Halvas"), Cyprus ("Halouvas"), Turkey ("Helva"), Iran ("Halva"), and India and Pakistan ("Halwa") is sometimes made with semolina scorched with sugar, butter, milk and pine nuts.

It can be used as an alternative to corn meal to 'flour' the underside of fresh pizza dough to prevent it from sticking to the peel.
In bread making, a small proportion of semolina added to the usual mix of flour produces a tasty crust.

Courtesy:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sooji

What is Maida made of?

In India, super refined wheat flour is called maida. This flour is used to make a wide variety of food items like puri, chappathi, parotta, etc. Maida is sometimes referred to as "All purpose flour".
Maida is made up of wheat flour it has no fibe and is made by fine grinding

What is Ghee???

Ghee (Hindi घी, Urdu گھی, Punjabi ਘੋ, Kashmiri ग्याव/گیاو - from Sanskrit ghṛtə घृत "sprinkled"; also known in Arabic as سمن, samneh, meaning "ghee" or "fat") is a class of clarified butter

Preparation of Ghee

Milk is curdled. The curd is then manually churned until it precipitates butter and leaves behind some whey. The butter is then heated on a low flame until a layer of white froth covers the surface. This state indicates the end of process and the liquid obtained on filtering the suspension is pure ghee.

Light: That rich, creamy look. You would imagine ghee is a heavy fat. It's not. What is ghee, you may ask. Dehydrated milk-butter without its solids. To make ghee, technologists heat milk butter on a slow fire. All the water slowly evaporates. What's left of the butter is a clear golden liquid, with the solids settled at the bottom. The liquid is ghee. Bonus: ghee is so flavorful that just a teaspoon will do more than four tablespoons of any other cooking oil. Luscious: Brush a layer on corn-on-the-cob or drop a dollop into hot lentils. Pour into the hollow of a freshly baked potato or saute with salmon. Stir-fry, bake, saute or spread--any which way you use it, ghee will find flavour with you. What’s more, it won’t smoke or burn during cooking. Lasting: Keep ghee and butter at room temperature. Butter will eventually turn rancid; ghee will not. It's the moisture in butter that promotes decay. Virtually moisture-free, ghee has no such problem. It will retain its original freshness and flavour for months, even without refrigeration. Energising: Some foods dissolve in water, and some in fat. Ghee in your diet will carry fat-soluble foods quickly and easily inside cells. Such foods will reach where they are supposed to reach, to work the way they are supposed to work. Sometimes, it's just packaging that makes the difference. An Anti-oxidant: Ghee has beta-carotene and vitamin E, both known anti-oxidants that counter the effects of free radicals. Science has been able to establish that free radicals cause nearly 90 percent of all degenerative diseases. Ghee in your diet, then, could give Father Time a run for his money. A Sharpener: The goodness of ghee not only powers your cells, but also penetrates the corners of your mind. Result?quicker leaning, better recall, wiser decisions. Cow ghee in particular is supposed to be extremely good for your brain. A Healer: Ghee repairs the mucus lining of the stomach and evens out the acid balance in there. An ancient Indian fable says King Akbar the Great once challenged a citizen to eat and digest limestone. The man accepted—and won. His secret? Just before he had the limsetone, he downed a huge bowlful of ghee to arm his stomach against the assault. So stir-fry the garlic in a teaspoon of ghee, and drizzle over piping hot bread. It’s aromatherapy of the most intoxicating kind. Then feel the flavour do ghee-licious things to your taste-buds. Indulge.

how to live long beautiful healthy life

Courtesy</">http://www.healthy-india.org>

How does one eat healthy in everyday life?

HEALTHY EATING HABITS : A WAY OF LIFE!

• Have a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables every day. A minimum quantity of 450-500 grams of fresh fruits and vegetables is advisable.Locally grown, locally available fruits and vegetables like berries are equally if not more beneficial as compared to the expensive fruits and vegetables.
• Consume variety, Wherever possible and available consume a variety of fruits and vegetables everyday. Different ones offer different benefits- Different vegetables and fruits can be either greens, yellows, orange and red, white or purple in colour etc. Motivate young children and adults alike to eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables to prevent a host of diseases.
• Consume whole grains instead of polished grains.
• Eat un-husked pulses rather than husked pulses
• Restrict the intake of saturated fats and all other fats which are solid at room temperature
• Avoid vanaspati as it contains hydrogenated trans fatty acids
• Moderate the intake of canned food, preserved food, fast food as these are high on salt and also contain preservatives which can be harmful in the long run.
• Small quantity of nuts especially groundnuts, peanuts and almonds are healthy and should be eaten. Groundnuts, almonds, peanuts and fruit seed which are unsalted and unfried can be included as a snack instead of the other regular snacks consumed.
• Common sources of Vanaspati are biscuits, mithais from halwais, cakes etc. In addition, many halwais use it for their namkeens. These should be eaten in moderation.
  Persons with sedentary lifestyle, or those with desk jobs or those with urban lifestyles should try and consume not more than 500-550gms of visible fat per month: Fat is all combined- oil (any type), ghee, butter.
• Try and roast in the sigri, oven, and barbecue instead of frying.
• Even if you have to fry, deep-frying on high heat is better than shallow frying, in slow heat.
• Be careful during the 'chonken (baghar) of sabjis'- use a small spoon to put the cooking medium/oil rather than pouring it from the container. This would control the intake of oil.
• Cook sabjis in slow flame with little bit of water rather than using more cooking medium- so that it doesn't stick to the kadhai. Non-stick utensils can be used to cook in "zero oil".
• Non-stick utensils can be used especially for dosas, chillas, patties, tikkis.
• If you are eating out, then, skim the gravy, sabjis, dals, soups.
• When eating South Indian food, have the idlis rather than the vadas/ dosas- some people make the dosas / chillas without oil on request.
• If you are travelling and purees( fried ) have to be eaten, then press them in between a paper napkin. Even other fried stuffs should be first put on the paper napkin to absorb the excess oil before serving/eating.
• Cheese and cheese-spreads, dressings like mayonnaise contain high amounts of fat and should be avoided or eaten in very small quantities only, occasionally.
• Instead of cheese, try strained curds (tied in a cloth for 3-4 hours). Add salt, pepper and flavours of your choice like mustard and garlic, to substitute for butter/cheese on rotis, bread, and as a dressings.

How does one translate the above advice to everyday life?

• Instead of fried snacks, have a fruit instead. Another option is raw sprouts. Snacks like sevais with vegetables, poha with vegetables, bread in toaster/equity, stuffed with vegetables or puffed rice (mudi/wheat) with freshly cut vegetables, sprouts with vegetables, idlis, roasted gram(chana) are other options.A handful of unsalted nuts can also be eaten as a snack.
• Even though cottage cheese / paneer has a lower fat content than cheese, it still has fat and should be eaten in moderation.
  Skim your milk overnight in the refrigerator and then use it. Toned milk is preferred to full cream milk.
• Don't eat egg yolk more than twice a week.
• Eat 'chilke vali dal' (unhusked pulses) instead of 'dhuli dal' (husked dal) - this not only has a positive influence on cholesterol but also on diabetes and also positively affects health and prevents cancer, heart attacks and strokes and helps maintain a lower body weight.
  Home ground atta is the best to eat in everyday life!
• Don't remove the 'choker' from the 'atta'. It is an important source of fibre. Besides, the choker also contains important vitamins and attenuates the rise of blood glucose levels in patients who have diabetes or even have a tendency for diabetes (family history of diabetes). Daliya or porridge is a much better breakfast than bread.
• Partially polished rice is better than fully polished rice.
• Try out jaggery or khajoor instead of sugar; or try honey instead of jam and sugar.
• Avoid refined maida / suji, (breads, biscuits, mathris, naans, kulchas, bhaturas etc) and go for whole wheat atta instead.
• Fresh steamed idlis (although made of rice) are more healthy than bread .Even freshly boiled rice is healthier than maida bread.

Difference Between Butter and Cheese

Butter, cheese, curd and yogurt are different dairy products produced by different strains of lactic acid, bacteria as starter culture and different fractions of whole milk as starting substrate.
Butter is a mixture of milk fat, buttermilk and water. It is made by churning the cream containing milk fat separated from milk by centrifugation.
Before churning the cream, it is soured by lactic acid bacteria like Streptococcus cremoris or Lactobacillus lactis.
Another type of bacterium called Leuconostoc citrovorum is also added, which attacks citric acid of milk to produce diacetyl which gives butter its characteristic flavour and aroma.
The churning of cream brings about the denaturation by violent agitation of fat globule surface.
The fat globules then clump together causing a change from an oil-in-water emulsion to a water-in- oil emulsion.
During churning the cream becomes granular and separation of buttermilk takes place. Butter is characterised by spreadability, a characteristic not found in butter substitutes.
This property is due to the glyceride structures of butterfat and to the presence of lower saturated fatty acids.
Pasteurised table butter shall be of good keeping quality and show no appreciable sign of deterioration in flavour if retained at 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cheese consists of milk curd (casein) that has been separated from whey (liquid portion of milk).
The curdling of milk is accomplished by using the enzyme rennin (casein coagulase) and lactic bacterial starter cultures. The curd is then cut into small cubes.
Then they are heated to 38 degrees Celsius and held at the temperature for about 45 minutes.
The heat increases the rate of acid production, which makes the cubes shrink.
Whey is drained off and the curd is allowed to mat and again cut into cubes.
The cubes are then kept under pressure overnight, which determines the final moisture content of finished product.
Cheeses are classified as soft cheeses if they have a high water content (50 to 80 per cent) semi hard cheeses if the water content is about 45 per cent and hard cheeses if they have a low water content (less than 40 per cent).
Cheeses are also classified as un-ripened if they are produced by single-step fermentation or as ripened if additional microbial growth is required during maturation of the cheese to achieve the desired taste, texture and aroma.
Commercially the cheese is called Paneer. When rennet obtained from the stomach of the goat is used as coagulant for cheese making, the cheese obtained is called Surti Paneer.
Its manufacture is more in Surat and Mumbai. Soft cheese known as ordinary Paneer is made from buffalo milk by using the berries of Whithania coagulans as the source of a coagulating enzyme for curdling the milk.