Why we need 'Disruptive Eating'

I met one college friend recently almost after 8 years. We touched base on the family, the college days and what we are doing now. Naturally now-a-days, I talk a lot about ‘disruptive eating’ and how each of us can make a global impact through such mundane act of eating. He listened to me for 10 minutes. Then he stopped me and asked me a question?

What does the plants eat? I replied ~ Carbon Dioxide and the plants exhale oxygen.

What we inhale? I replied ~ Oxygen and exhale the carbon dioxide.

So if we go on reducing the carbon, what the plants would eat? Basically we are reducing the food supply for the plants. Specially he was very unhappy with the government interference in imposing the carbon cut.

I was kind of stumped. Like we went to the same school here. I knew his political leaning but never imagined the degree to which this debate has degraded here in the US.

I did mumble through my response that his concern is not true. I asked him, how much meat he eats in a day? He said, may be a pound. I asked, assume if he gets 3 pounds of meat every day, what he would do? He said, I can’t overeat, this is not good for my health. I would throw it away.

So I said similarly the plants can’t overeat, and they need to throw away the carbon dioxide, where, to our atmosphere. That is what is causing the global warming. But he was not convinced.

So during the same week, I mentioned this encounter to my family. My high-school going daughter was kind of alarmed. She asked me, what was the world population in 1800? She is studying now in her history class about the industrial revolution around 1850 or so. And there were no motor vehicles either that time. I saw where she is coming from. In 1800, there was almost no pollution (extraneous carbon), less human and more trees. Why the less trees now need the carbon dioxide from the outside?

It set me out on some research trail. In 1800, there were approx. 900 million people in the world. Today the world forest cover is 4 Billion hectare. The annual net loss of the world forest coverage is 5.2 million hectare now. This net loss has reduced considerably in the last 10 years. 1 hectare can hold 1000-2500 trees depending on the size, separation etc. The world population now is around 7 Billion and by one estimate there are around 600 to 700 Billion trees now. Whatever way you extrapolate or interpolate, in 1800, there could be 1.5 trillion trees or more.

I wish I could have shared this data with my friend to authenticate my ‘overeating’ logic. But the real problem is 40% of population here shut them off from any debate about the climate change. Today we have a report from NASA on CNN and I am sure the naysayers won’t click the link ~ http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/16/us/antarctica-larsen-b-ice-shelf-to-disappear/index.html . No surprise when some republican governors are not ready to utter the CC (climate change) thing.

This debate with my friend put us into the urgency mode and we launched our campaign for ‘disruptive eating’ on the social media on the Mothers’ Day on 10^th May 2015. I believe ‘Nirmal for disruptive eating’ can take this message to all and sundry more effectively. How?

Let me disseminate the disruptive eating. Ours is a comprehensive approach to tackle the social inequality and the climate change.

·         The social inequality has 3 components. The health inequality holds the key to overcome the income and educational inequality, the other 2 components.

·         The first step to achieve the health equality is to know your BMI (body mass index), the first stage of the ‘disruptive eating.’ 74% of the population in the US are overweight or obese, majority from the low income populace. Once you know BMI, even subconsciously you start to take care of eating.

·         At Nirmal, from our logo to the toll-free phone no of 844-KNOW-BMI to the poster at the entrance, you can’t miss the message.

·         At the second stage of ‘disruptive eating’, our message is you don’t need meat for protein and there are so many options in Indian cuisine from the lentils to soya chunks to spinach to chickpeas. Incidentally Canada is the largest producer of the lentils.

·         Indian food is curry based and this plays a role in having 500 million vegetarians in India, almost 42% of the population. The curry contains plethora of beneficial spices and the base sauce. With the chicken or soya chunks, the curry dominates your taste buds.

·         If the 100 million people in the US skips meat once a week, there could be saving of 3.6 Billion pound of meat. The meat consumption alone accounts for 21% of the greenhouse gases, the main culprit for the global warming.

·         The global food security is tied to reduced meat consumption as well as the food wastage all around us. We discarded the buffet and put a unique 1-page menu to reduce the food wastage. We are the first Indian restaurant to introduce 8 Oz entrees.

Please read the link ~

 https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/05/food-how-much-does-the-world-need/?utm_content=buffer13b6f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

·         We stopped using the Tandoor oven due to the higher energy consumption (used in 95% of Indian restaurants in the US) and discarded the naan (white flour bread) made in Tandoor oven. We give our patrons just one option, the whole wheat bread. Our poster blares~ Eat Healthy, Save Energy, Save our planet.

·         For the non-vegetarians, our message is ‘Eat Goat.’ Goat is healthier than even chicken and Goat is far better substitute for beef and pork in the long term. ‘Nirmal’ may be the only restaurant serving goat meat in Michigan. Goat meat consumption can reduce the greenhouse gases due to reduction in the pastures and grains needed for beef and pork.

·        Goat could be reared anywhere from the Himalayas to the sub-Saharan Africa. The popularity of the goat meat could impact the global economy in big way. It is called poor man’s cow and may provide the milk and the source of income to the poor.

·        At the third stage of ‘disruptive eating’, we aim to make Indian food affordable. We replaced the buffet with $5 Food box (5 items). This avoids the food wastage as well as the overeating, a constant complaint of our patrons for the buffet. 95% of Indian restaurants do buffet here in the US and only 2% in India.

·         We promote the ‘home cooking’ by sharing various recipes through the social media. The mothers, the bedrock of any family, have all important role to play here and the home cooking can bring the price of lunch or dinner by half. We plan to launch the free cooking classes at Nirmal during the summer.

·         The low income people are still stuck in the burgers, pizzas or tacos. We want them to make switch to the lentils, the whole wheat bread (roti) and the Basmati rice, all foods with low glycemic index and covers the protein and dietary fiber requirements. The low glycemic index foods play a role in the weight loss or control.

·         At the fourth stage, at Nirmal, our patrons get a sense of gratification. They use the bio-degradable products, they can skip the meat and/or can eat goat meat. In all respects, they contribute towards the reduction of the greenhouse gases.

·        We believe that the physical health is tied to the mental and spiritual health. Hence we share ‘Gita’ and ‘Yoga’ with our patrons, the 2 pillars of Indian spirituality. We want to expose the patrons to Indian culture along with Indian food. 

The restaurants have very high visibility in the US as the majority eat outside. We believe we can convey our message unobtrusively through Nirmal specially to the young generation. Imagine 500+ Nirmals all across the US. Once more and more people get the message and get convinced, the politicians would follow the suit.

We are actively looking for the like-minded people and the organizations to take this concept further by expanding the Nirmal franchise as well as publishing the book and video game or app on the 'disruptive eating.'

'disruptive eating' simplified

The 'disruptive eating' consists of 4 stages. Each stage of activities or actions has its own reasons.

First stage is to inform people about the healthy eating and the healthy drinking ~ the mantra for Nirmal. Please visit our website www.nirmalindiancuisine.com and see ‘Nirmal at a glance.’

From the ‘BMI chart’ at the entrance, we have put various posters which our patrons can not ignore. Then we have our toll free phone number ~ 844-KNOW-BMI or our logo which leaves no one in doubt about our intention.

Let us talk about the magnitude of the obesity or overweight prevalence problem. There was a global conference in Nov 2014 at Rome, Italy under the auspices of FAO, UN. 2 Billion people out of 7 Billion world population are obese or overweight and the price tag to fight this is $1 trillion. In the US, 74% of the population are obese or overweight and the price tag to fight this menace is $116B. Incidentally in Nov 2014, FDA here in the US came out with the guideline that any restaurant chain with 20 or more locations need to post the ‘calorie count’ for their food items within a year. It may include the food vendors at the cinema halls, the grocery stores selling the food items. This is good first step, but is that enough given the magnitude of the problem. The New York city has such guidelines since 2004-5 and the survey after survey have pointed out that only 30% of the patrons took notice of it.

At Nirmal, our message is so explicit that 90% of the patrons have taken notice of it whether it is BMI or why eat lentils or Goat meat is healthier than Chicken. Majority have appreciated it though someone has called these weird, the dietician office etc. We believe we need to speak out loud if we need to take our message specially to the low income or less educated populace which are disproportionately affected by this menace. And the best place is the restaurants where everyone visits once or twice a week.

The second stage of ‘disruptive eating’ is the content of the message which is aimed at dispelling so many myths. And then why Indian cuisine for the disruptive eating?

Indian cuisine has 2 staple food items ~ lentils and whole wheat bread (roti) besides plenty of vegetarian and vegan options alongside the goat meat for the non-vegetarians. Let me explain how the disruptive eating revolves around these food items.

For example, here in the US, the meat is synonymous with the protein. We have put the nutrition chart on the back page of the menu or the walls of the dining hall which depicts that the lentils or the soya chunks have twice or more protein than the meat for the same quantity. Lot of people want to avoid the meat on the various grounds, what are their options? Indian food is ‘Curry’ based food. ‘Curry’ is a kind of gravy which is made from some base sauce like tomato or onion with the plethora of spices. Once you develop the taste of curry with the spices, you won’t even notice if you are eating soya chunks or Chicken. India has 500 millions vegetarians more than all vegetarians combined all over the world and the credit goes to the curry based food. Population wise 42% of India’s population is vegetarian as compared to only 8% in the US. So Indian food makes the choice of vegetarian eating much easier.

India is 2^nd largest producer of the lentils and we consume it all in India as the lentils is the staple food item. On the other hand, Canada is the largest producer and the largest exporter too of the lentils. Lentils or legumes may be the only excellent source of the protein as well as the dietary fiber. Similarly India is 2^nd largest producer of wheat too, no surprise why roti is staple food item for 60% of us Indians.

Take the calorie chart for the meat items used by us. The goat meat, a red meat, is healthier than Chicken. The guideline proposed by FDA is deceptive. Say if some food joint uses 70 gms of meat in beef burger as compared to 100 gms of meat in chicken burger, the calorie count would be almost the same. And people may miss that chicken is far healthier than beef.

India is 2^nd largest producer of the goat meat (150 million head as compared to 4 million in the US). Needless to mention, the goat meat is very popular in India and with Indian spices, anyone can get hooked to goat meat items at Nirmal specially goat curry and goat biryani. In Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti region, no Chinese (China has the largest goat population) or Mediterranean or  American restaurant serve the goat meat. So if someone wants to try goat meat, what is their option?

At Nirmal, we provide plenty of vegan and vegetarian options, only whole wheat bread and the goat meat for the non-vegetarians.

The third stage of ‘disruptive eating’ is to position Indian food in competition with the pizza, taco or burger or specially the Subway sandwich. At present Indian food may be considered elite, one meal costing around $9-$10 at the minimum. We have brought it down to $5 introducing Food Box for lunch or dinner which contains 5 items. Food Box is a healthier alternative to the buffet. Eventually with our aim to impart the free cooking classes and the sharing of the recipes through the social media, we can bring it down more if cooked at home. We introduced various options in the menu such as 8 Oz entrees or the only curry which makes it cheaper for everyone to try Indian food. Also we changed the way we cook food to keep our food fresh as well as cheaper by minimizing the wastage. At Nirmal we have decided to remove the ‘Tandoor oven’ used to make the white flour bread (naan) from the kitchen which would bring down the labor charges as well as the energy cost. Various innovations can sustain us for the first 2 years of our operation, the period which we need to get our message through to the targeted population.

We need to wean away the populace who are still eating the pizza, taco or burger and provide them with a healthier option in the form of Indian food. This segment of population is not in good physical health and this is a huge barrier to overcome the health inequality. And we believe that the health inequality is the biggest impediment to fight the other 2 components of the social inequality ~ the income inequality and the education inequality.

The final and fourth stage of the ‘disruptive eating’ has 2 components ~ first to provide a sense of gratification to our patrons and second, to expose them to the culture associated with Indian cuisine. Say for example 100 million people out of 330 million population in the US skips meat a day per week, the total savings in the meat production is 3.6 billion pound (average per capita per day meat consumption is 330 gms in the US). The meat production accounts for 21% of the green house gases, the main culprit for the global warming. At Nirmal we use the bio-degradable products and our patrons sense that they are also a part of this big endeavor of reducing the global warming.

All of us know that the beef and the pork are not sustainable meats and no surprise we humans are trying to develop the synthetic meat. The unveiling of $350K burger last year is still fresh in our memory. The goat rearing could turn out to be an alternative as meat as well as to combat the world hunger problem. The goat could be reared in any weather from the Himalayas to the sub Saharan Africa and the goat does not need the pasture required for the beef meat and the food grain for the pork meat. The goat is always considered as a poor man’s cow and it is high time we bring it to the mainstream.

Indian food comes with a 5000 years of the culture and the traditions. ‘Gita’ and ‘Yoga’ are 2 integral parts of Indian culture and the exposure of these to our patrons would bring the mental and spiritual well being along with the good physical health.

In a nutshell, the disruptive eating addresses 2 most glaring issues of our generation ~ the social inequality and the climate change. And 500+ Nirmals in the US can make a huge global impact. Please read other posts here to get an idea about our thought process.
 

We are in the process of publishing a video game or app and a book on the ‘disruptive eating’ to bring our concept to the masses in the US and beyond.

Say Yes to whole wheat bread

We discarded the Tandoor oven and the naan (white flour bread) on Feb 16^th 2015 at Nirmal and let me share some of the reactions from our patrons during this one month period. It took us almost a year to make this decision. No surprise we may be the only Indian restaurant with full offerings without naan out of 3500 or so in the US. There are some like Udipi or other restaurants offering south Indian fares or Nehee (in Canton, MI) who offers Indian street food, don’t have naan.

• Very first day someone orders Garlic Naan, the most popular kind of bread  and we tell we don’t have naan as we made switch to only whole wheat bread (roti or chapatti) and we have Garlic roti. He says I care about Garlic flavor and don’t care about the type of bread.
• One regular patron who visits us 2-3 times a week for the food box ($5 for 5 items), a far better substitute of the buffet for the people who wants to eat Indian food regularly. He was kind of disappointed as he liked naan. He mentioned how his family adopted the whole wheat spaghetti after lot of discussion and 2-3 months of switch-over time. And he is eating roti now.
• One patron ordered ‘Lentils Roti’ and got fond of it. No surprise there is no stuffed bread concept specially with lentils or green peas or chickpeas in any other cuisine. Lentils or other legumes are very good source of protein as well as dietary fiber.
• One patron started arguing that Roti is not soft like naan and she was right. All Indian restaurants with naan offering make roti also in the Tandoor oven and it makes it hard or crisp. We make roti on Tawa like we do at home. And trust me Tawa roti stays soft even for 5-6 hours. The naan gets chewy and hard just after an hour. She ordered only entrees without breads.
• So far we have missed 2 orders due to naan and it is very heart warming. When we stopped doing the buffet, we lost almost 50% of the sales. No change in the sales so far now.

Our reasons for discarding the Tandoor oven and the naan were very simple. Very few may know that the naan is made by pasting the flat bread on the walls of Tandoor oven which maintains the temperature of 900 F. And the oven remains continuously ON to maintain its wall temperature. Tawa operates at 500 F max. Normally Tawa is a circular iron pan of 10-inch diameter but we use normal non-stick pan at the restaurant.

• Tandoor oven consumes 3 times more energy than Tawa as evident from the savings of $200 for the monthly gas bill of the kitchen.
• We have had huge turn-over of Tandoori chefs (who works at Tandoor oven) as we used 8 persons during the last 4 years, job duration varying from 8 days to 8 months. Let me admit the working condition for the Tandoori chef is very tough as one is putting his hands inside the oven to paste the bread on the walls and basically your whole body is near 900 F for the better part of the working hours of 8 hours or more. I know it first hand as I learned to make the naan in Tandoor oven during the switch-over between the tandooris. You can’t take naan out of the menu if you lose the Tandoori chef.
• And this turn-over is not only in Michigan. Indian restaurants in the US advertize and hire the personnel from the India Abroad, the weekly magazine. And 8 out of 10 ads is for Tandoori chefs.  You can imagine the hassle of hiring the tandooris. And naturally they command a salary of $800-$1000 a week. Tawa is easy to operate and with no Tandoor oven, we need just 2 persons for our kitchen instead of 3.
• I was aware of the research that just switching over to the whole wheat reduces the risk of the heart disease by 20%. What hastened our decision was a commentary on NPR (national public radio) in which an expert was telling that eating white flour bread of any kind is as good as eating nothing. It just spikes your blood sugar, gives you a feel of full meal for a while and again makes you hungry. And you go on eating again and again. The whole wheat bread or any food items with low glycemic index makes your meal more fulfilling and helps in the weight loss too.

So the big question is why something not good for health, not good for the working personnel and not good for the business (saving the utility cost as well as the cost of Tandoori chef) is still synonymous with Indian cuisine here in the US. On top of that 60% of the population in India eat roti or chapatti at home, 30% don’t eat bread (mostly in the eastern India) and 10 % eat some kind of naan at home or in the restaurants.
Basically we are differentiating from all other restaurants if we offer only whole wheat bread. Go to Chipotle or Taco Bell, they have while flour tortillas. Mediterranean restaurants have white flour pita breads. Go to Kroger or Meijer, you would find 10 options for white flour whereas whole wheat flour would be tucked in some corner or on the back of the racks. It baffles me why people have to make an extra effort to eat whole wheat bread. Yes whole wheat flour costs 20 cents per pound more if you buy 20 pound bag. But the benefits of eating whole wheat any day is worth spending more.
For an Indian restaurant, this extra cost would easily be covered with the savings of almost $3000 per month on the account of gas bill and the tandoori chef.

Have you ever wondered why there is no Indian food chain anywhere in the world? At least I don’t know anyone having more than 50 odd locations if you compare with Panda Express (Chinese, 1200 locations), Chipotle (Mexican, 1700 locations) or Olive Garden (Italian, 800 locations). I am not mentioning Subway with 35000+ locations or Domino’s Pizza with 8000 locations globally. In India it is hard to imagine in the sense that for every 100 miles or so, we have different food and the different language.

We started our journey in 2009 with the pursuit of making an Indian food chain and we believe Nirmal could prove to be the basic building block, devoid of 2 main impediments ~ the buffet and the tandoor oven and with a message of ‘disruptive eating.’  With no Tandoor oven, we can convert any closed American or Mexican restaurant with 10 ft kitchen hood into Nirmal franchise. And now we can envisage all women staffed Nirmal –a first for any restaurant chain. 
Please see ‘Franchise’ tab on our website www.nirmalindiancuisine.com. If you have entrepreneurial streak, you believe in making positive difference while earning profits, we would like to hear from you. The 'disruptive eating' is best suited for Indian cuisine but we are open to other cuisines if it fulfills our basic criterion.

Disruptive Eating ~ Many Dimensions

Recently I was listening to Diane Rehm’s show on NPR (national public radio), a live program and a listener called in to say that the media is not doing their duty with respect to the Keystone XL pipeline project by not informing the people about its more cons than pros. One lady panelist on the show responded that if only Kim Kardashian can break the internet records almost every month, then one should not blame the media.

I realized how difficult a job for us to inform people about the ‘disruptive eating’ which empowers everyone to change the world.

One patron opined in the yelp review recently that we are going overboard on BMI (body mass index) putting BMI at the entrance and even in our toll free phone no. In Nov 2014 there was a global conference for obesity and overweight issue in Rome, Italy under the auspices of UN FAO. Total 2 billion people out of 7 billion world population are obese or overweight and total cost to fight this is $2 trillion. For the US, 74% of the population falls in this category with the price tag of $116 billion. So my question is when is the time to go overboard?

Also the last month FDA (Food & Drug administration, US) came up with an order for all restaurant chains with 20 or more locations to display the ‘calorie count’ for all food or beverage items. It would include the grocery stores selling prepared food and the food joints in the movie theatres etc. No doubt, it is a good first step. But it is kind of ‘better late than never’, not a war given the gravity of the problem. What is worrying more in the US that the poor or less educated people are afflicted disproportionately with the overweight or obesity problem and they have fewer choices to come up trump. Can ‘Nirmal for disruptive eating’ make a difference?

We talk a lot about the vegetarian food as well as the goat meat for the non-vegetarians. Indian cuisine is synonymous with the vegetarian food and the ample proof comes in the form of 500 millions vegetarians in India alone (42% of the population) which is more than all vegetarians combined in the rest of the world. Some analysts tend to highlight ‘poverty’ or less income as a cause of the vegetarianism in India. What they overlook is, in India, the egg is considered a non-vegetarian item and the vegetables are not cheaper than egg. Out of 500 millions, 375 millions are pure vegetarians not eating eggs. In my view, our ‘curry’ based food with plethora of spices is the key to the ‘vegetarianism.’ India was famous for its spices since the last 5000 years and still 75% of the spices produced in the world come from India. For comparison, China has 65 millions vegetarians, just 5% of their population.  But I would suggest you to try Indian cuisine to get into this debate.

Similarly when we started to promote ‘goat meat’, many patrons were perplexed. Is goat, a red meat, better than Chicken? We used an article from Michigan State University, one of the top agriculture university in the US, to authenticate our claim. I grew up eating only ‘goat meat’ in India and I have seen rearing of ‘goat’ by our neighbors in the village. At that point I was not at all aware of its health quotient or about India being the second largest producer of the goat meat. (150 million heads to 4 million in the US). Goat meat could be the answer to the unsustainable meats like the beef or pork. Specially for the poorer regions of the world, the goat rearing could be a tool to reduce the social inequality or to reduce malnutrition. Please see the link ~ http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/goat-meat-the-final-frontier/2011/03/28/AF0p2OjC_story.html .

But our challenge is immense. Think of the sister cities of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti ~ the home to 2 big universities of Michigan and having the most educated and diverse population in Michigan. Out of 300 restaurants all around, Nirmal may be the only restaurant serving goat meat. So even if you decide to try goat meat, where you would find. Trust me once you try our goat curry or goat biryani, you won’t go back to the other fares. And it baffles me more as Indian or Mediterranean restaurants don’t have goat meat and these regions are the biggest consumers of the goat meat. 

Talking about the challenges. For the last one year, we started promoting subtly ‘whole wheat bread’ called Roti at Nirmal in place of Naan bread made of white flour.  All of us know that the whole wheat has five times more dietary fiber than white flour and its glycemic index is low making the whole meal more fulfilling. But we still have 80% of our patrons opting for Naan though 10% down. But what hurts me more personally is we Indians at home here or in India eat Roti as a staple item and eat Naan only in the restaurants. As in our culture specially in India we eat out once or twice in a month, so we rarely eat Naan. In the US when we eat out, mostly try other cuisines, so little chance of eating Naan. Actually the first time I ate Naan when I was 18. Also very few may know that naan bread is cooked in Tandoor oven (special type of clay oven) by pasting the bread on the inside walls whose temperature reaches 900 F and it remains continuously ON to maintain its wall temperature. For the burners in the commercial range, this temperature is 500 F which we use to make roti bread on Tawa (kind of flat pan made of iron or steel). It is anybody’s guess how much nutrients left at such high temperature. Operationally it is far better to use Tandoor oven  but it consumes 3 times more energy. So I have always asked this question myself ~ why we are serving Naan made at Tandoor oven in the name of authentic Indian cuisine which we claim as the healthy eating? And when we are trying to make Indian cuisine your regular meal instead of once a month extravaganza. Come 2015 we plan to discard the Tandoor oven and the naan, synonymous with Indian cuisine here in the US whereas only 10% of the population in India specially in the northern states may eat naan. Off course an article from the Vegetarian Times helped us to make this decision, the excerpt given below. We know this would hurt our business as our 'no buffet' decision did but it is in tune with our mantra of 'eat healthy, save energy, save our planet.'

 *In a 10-year Harvard study completed in 1994, men and women who ate high-fiber breads had fewer heart attacks and strokes than those whose tastes ran to bagels and baguettes.

*Simply switching from white to whole wheat bread can lower heart disease risk by 20 percent, according to research from the University of Washington reported in the April 2, 2003 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Most importantly with Tandoor oven out from our kitchen, it becomes similar to the kitchens of any American or Mexican restaurant having a commercial 6-burner range, a fryer and a flat top grill. Eventually it would help us expand our presence in Michigan and beyond and actually we are actively looking for the partners who believe in making the positive difference through a business venture.

So it boils down to the same feeling. Eating is so mundane that we don’t care or rather don’t give a hoot. Talking of the ‘calorie count’ of food items in the restaurant. New York was the first city to introduce these guidelines way back around 2004-5 and the survey after survey pointed out that only 30% of the people took notice of it. At least I can claim from the roof top that 90% of our patrons would have known or observed what we are trying to convey ~ BMI everyone should know or the goat meat is healthier or why eat Lentils. So are we doing the right thing? Is not this right time to forgo our modesty and speak what is good for all of us?

The disruptive eating has 2 more components ~ fresh, affordable and nutritious Vs taste and wastage and to promote the home cooking going forward. I come across the comments that our food is often late. Our chefs make everything from the scratch and make it the way we eat at home. That’ why you would find our food more spiced with less dairy cream and off course a different taste though the original. One big impact is we have almost eliminated our wastage as we cook once an order is in. Not a brainer when we offer lunch or dinner starting at $5. Earlier when we used to do buffet or have had some back-up, we used to waste a lot and the wastage cost passes to the patrons. In the US alone, the food wastage costs $165B and 40% of this wastage comes from the food joints or the grocers, the rest by the consumers. Talking of the taste more. We introduced vegan naan bread at Nirmal, a first in the US, by not using milk and egg for its dough. Does this make the naan bread less tastier, yes? But this makes naan a bit more nutritious and palatable to so many vegans and specially the vegetarians from India.

Another agenda for 2015, we plan to start sharing some recipes with you which you can cook at the home easily. The first item would be Rice lentils curry called ‘Kichhdi’ in India, the ultimate comfort food. It is vegan and we offer now on Saturdays only at Nirmal. Eventually we plan to hold the free cooking classes at Nirmal on Sundays. This would bust so many myths about the Indian cuisine and bring the cost of Indian food down if cooked at home.

Any type of cuisine represents its culture and off course India has long history of the culture and the traditions. I would like to share 2 things which represent India ~ ‘Gita’ and ‘Yoga.’ And I would tell you why. Just for a brief background, we are celebrating this year ‘5151’ st anniversary of Gita, you read it right, five thousand one hundred fifty first anniversary. And ‘Gita’ is the spiritual embodiment of everything what India represents. ‘Yoga’ came to the world stage this year when Indian prime minister Narendra Modi proposed an International yoga day during his UN general assembly address in New York and just this month UN declared June 21^st as the International Yoga day. You may get surprised why it took so long for ‘Yoga’ to get the center stage when the UN observes so many days ~ http://www.un.org/en/events/observances/days.shtml .

Let me admit as I grew up in India, I became aware of these 2 things very late in my adult life. Now when I look back, it seems a bit ironical. My kids are fortunate having come into contact with Gita at their young age as there are so many avenues here in the US. Somehow, in India, these 2 things got identified with the majority religion ‘Hinduism’ in India and in the name of ‘secularism,’ we missed out on 2 biggest character building tools for the young minds. You judge yourselves why these could be limited to just a religion or a region~ http://www.gita4free.com . Yoga is very popular in the US though not affordable for everyone. I would share what I learned by self and practice daily ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Jnra2O9Fc .

If you want to know the benefits of Yoga, please see this link on a research at Harvard University ~ http://www.telegraphindia.com/1141217/jsp/nation/story_19224064.jsp#.VJGPJSvF-Ng . Recently I came across a book ‘World Order’ by Henry Kissinger, one of the most famous diplomats having served the US and it quotes extensively from ‘Gita’ and the ‘Arthashastra’ – the 2 most famous books from India. Please see ~ http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/the-world-according-to-gita-millennia-before-european-thinkers-gita-and-arthashastra-embodied-indian-tradition-of-realpolitik/  .

When I see so much turmoil or disagreement here almost on everything, I always wonder what is the way out. We need physical, mental and spiritual well being for all of us. And the physical starts with your eating habits. Second thing, we always think ‘one tree does not make a forest.’ But each of us can change the things and a simple step of right eating can make a global impact. Once you are physically fit, then you can indulge in the pursuit of your mental and spiritual well being. And then you are ready to use and SHARE the power of ‘knowledge.’ We all know that food and fear & sleep and sex ~ these 4 things are common to us and the animals. Only ‘knowledge’ makes us humans different and the knowledge is not about knowing the dimensions of Ms Kardashian’s anatomy.

Today the young people are blessed in the sense that Gita or Yoga or so many character building tools are just a click away on their phone or the laptop. And ‘Yes you can’ can combine into a big ‘Yes we can.’

Decoding the 'disruptive eating'

When I coined the word ‘disruptive eating’ for what we are doing at Nirmal, I meant how Nirmal as an Indian food chain can disrupt the US food industry. Off course it would impact the health profile of the US in general for good. Most common use of ‘disruptive’ in recent times is with technology and we all can agree how it has changed our lives for good. More importantly how it has empowered an ordinary person to access and use the same information and facility which was beyond reach of so many people.

‘Eating’ is such a simple daily routine for all of us and using the same yardstick we need to show how the ‘disruptive eating’ can empower everyone to make a difference. In India, we have a saying that there are 2 types of the people in the world ~ one who eat to live and other who live to eat. Just to explain a bit more, the first category just gobble up anything when they feel hungry without batting an eyelid and the second one give due thought to what they are eating. And the disruptive eating asks you to opt for the second category.

Just for brief background, Nirmal is a self-service café in Ypsilanti, MI serving affordable and authentic Indian food with our flagship item being Food Box ($5 for 5 items). When we started way back in 2009 as Temptations, a fine dining restaurant with full Bar and the lunch buffet, our aim was to just establish the first Indian food chain. By 2013, we have had taken our food to 4 campuses and 8 corporate cafeterias in Michigan and launched our first franchise at Columbus, OH. We knew well that Indian food is tasty, nutritious and healthy but it was not reaching to who needed it more and our customer base was stagnant, mostly from the college educated and the middle and higher income populace. In the meantime I have had some personal experiences which told lot more about the US food industry and how people need more info to opt for the second category which I described earlier. Let me share some personal experiences. In India I grew up eating goat meat, our specialty and chicken and you may be surprised to know that goat meat is healthier than even chicken.

1. One day I go to Jimmy John's for the lunch and they don’t have chicken or goat sandwich. They have Turkey sandwich and I know Turkey meat is healthier than chicken. But then why only pork and beef, why not goat, the healthiest meat among the red meats.
2. My daughter wanted something burger or sandwich for the school picnic and I trooped into a nearby Burger King  by 9am. Same story played out again. They do have chicken burger but served only after noon. For veggie, they have salad.
3. My daughter, 11 yr old, has had an American friend for the sleepover and we go to Wendy for their dinner pick-up. We end up with getting the beef item at our home for the first time in our life as her friend does not eat chicken rather only eat beef and pork. In our religion Hinduism (85% of population in India are Hindus), the cow is considered sacred, hence we don’t even touch or see the beef items.
4. When we used to serve our food at University of Michigan campus cafeterias, one day the executive chef asked me what is today for protein? I was kind of perplexed but later realized that he was enquiring about the chicken items. So protein here in the US is synonymous with the meat.
5. I came across ‘No goat left behind’ campaign by Heritage Food USA and it bordered on ‘eat goat to save goat.’ The goat cheese and milk are very popular in the US as they are very similar to the human milk and lactose-free. Hence the majority of baby male goats are killed at birth as the goat dairy farms are not willing to spend money for their upkeep and there is no such demand for goat meat here in the US.
6. Lunch buffet is a good way to introduce our cuisine to the first timers. One common refrain from our regular patrons was how they overeat every time as our buffet is so good and they don’t want to spend $10 for a lunch 2-3 times a week. Also we found that only 3% of the customers who ate lunch buffet ordered from our dinner menu. In India, only 2% high-end restaurants offer any kind of buffet whereas in the US, 95% of Indian restaurants do buffet, not sure why. The very first thing which did during our transition was to substitute the buffet with $5 food box with 5 items.

We realized there is huge information gap and to be honest, there is no big change in the US food industry or the way people eat their food for the last 20 years or so. The proverbial last straw for us was the unveiling of synthetic burger on 5^th Aug last year which hurried the launch of Nirmal. It was more than a coincidence that Nirmal was launched in the same week though it took us 3-4 months to finalize our format (read self-service and 1-page menu) and another 3-4 months to define the ‘disruptive eating.’ Now we are ready to take ‘Nirmal’ to the next level.

The meat production and consumption world-wide specially beef and pork is unsustainable in terms of the resources required and also accounts for 21% of the greenhouse gases, the main culprit for the global warming. So it is natural for us humans to look for the alternatives. What baffles me is why we wait for a synthetic burger’s price to come down from $325K last year to something reasonable in the future. And would it be affordable to the ordinary people? We believe Indian cuisine could be a better alternative and I would explain how.

Indian cuisine revolves around ‘Curry’ and the spices make the ‘Curry’ so flavorful that one won’t be able to discern much difference while eating Chicken or Soya Chunks curry. No surprise that India has 500 millions vegetarians more than all vegetarians in the rest of the world. The spices are beneficial and we have 5000 yrs of history to back-up our claim. Most of the research on the spices are being done in the US and European universities. So when we say under ‘disruptive eating’, you don’t have to eat meat for protein, we mean 2 things. First, soya chunks or lentils have twice or equal protein with 5 times less fat than chicken. And second, the ‘Curry’ can make it easy to skip meat once or twice a week with plenty of vegan and vegetarian options under Indian cuisine. And if 100 million people in the US can skip meat once a week, there would be huge savings in the meat production of 3.6B pound per year. Total world-wide meat production is 660B pound per year and the US alone accounts for 93B pound.

Let me dispel one more myth about the difference between the meat protein and the vegetarian protein. Protein mainly consists of various kinds of the amino acids and both type of protein consists of all amino acids. Only difference is the lack of B-12 vitamin in the vegetarian protein. B-12 is plentiful in the eggs and in the dairy products. So vegans would need to take supplement for B-12.

Another message is ‘eat goat if you eat meat.’ Goat is far healthier than beef or pork or even chicken. But what makes the goat meat sustainable is for the same amount of meat, the goat consumes 1/5 of the grain consumed for the pork and 1/3 for the beef. So by eating goat once or twice per week you not only would be helping the Heritage Foods USA campaign but also would be saving the huge amount of grain. The world meat consumption consists of 38% pork, 30% poultry and 25% beef and 6% goat. If we can promote the goat meat production at the world level, the huge savings in the grain could be used to eradicate hunger among almost 800 million people worldwide. Besides it the goat is a sturdy animal, could be raised in any type of climate. And they are considered browsers not grazers like the cows, hence the far less grass consumption. Please read other posts at this blog to know more.

So your journey to the second category of people ‘Who live to eat’ begins with our very first message under disruptive eating ~ ‘Know your BMI’ (Body Mass Index). The US has 74% overweight prevalence ranked 9^th among almost 200 countries in the world and spends $116B in related costs to tackle the obesity and overweight issue. India has 16% overweight prevalence ranked 178^th, and much of the credit goes to ‘Curry.’ Trust me once you know your BMI, you would start to think about what you are eating.

Each one of us can change the world by the simple act of eating whether in terms of reducing the global warming or eradicating the hunger worldwide besides taking care of self. I would urge you to visit our website www.nirmalindiancuisine.com or watch our video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tIrXuwWroE . 

Recently I came across an article at cnn.com about Rishikesh, India, a small town, being the spiritual Disneyland of the world and I was not aware of it. So the key is to try Indian food once and then decide if it is worth to walk the talk. And when you start with $5 food box, you would help us in our pursuit of making ‘Nirmal’ the first Indian food chain. And think of 500+ Nirmals in the US in the next 5-10 years which can disrupt the existing US food industry for a good cause besides the huge global impact. We don’t need to wait for the synthetic burger.

In a nutshell the 'disruptive eating' could be a small step by all of us, a giant leap for the humankind  if we tweak a bit what Neil Armstrong said while taking the first step on the moon.

Time for 'disruptive' eating, not technology

The last week would be remembered for the limited launch of ‘Google Glass.’  There would be huge rush for it as people are hearing about since long and few would get it. Another ‘disruptive’ technology and more in the pipeline. All these technologies have made our life better.

Can we think of ‘disruptive’ eating now? Think of the last 20 years. Is there any substantive change in the US food industry? I can single out some ethnic cuisines getting footholds in the US like Mediterranean and Chinese cuisines and/or The Whole Foods or Trader’s Joe becoming more visible. But the majority are still eating burgers, pizzas and tacos and the select few have access to various organic food items and the healthy options in all forms.

The ‘disruptive’ eating would address the 2 most glaring issues which we face today ~ the ‘social inequality’ and the ‘climate change.’

Yesterday was the Earth Day (22^nd April) and we were reminded of global warming and its impact on us and the future generation in various forms, please see the UN report out on 12^th April. The global meat consumption contributes towards 21% of the greenhouse gases, the main culprit behind the global warming. And the US has the highest per capita meat consumption.

The ‘social inequality’ has 3 components ~ inequality in health, income and education in the order as per my perception.

Recently French economist Thomas Piketty was making waves in the US with his illustrations on the income inequality worldwide more pronounced in the US. With only 2 facts you can get an idea of the income inequality in the US ~ only 16000 (sixteen thousand) households out of 117 million account for 44% of total US income. And the growth in income for the bottom 90% of the population in 2011 as compared to the income level of 1966 say measured as one inch. The growth for top 1% during the same period is at 5 miles as per observation of Pulitzer prize winning writer David Cay Johnston.

Education equality or inequality again came to the fore with the US Supreme Court’s decision this week to uphold the ban on the affirmative action in admission to Michigan public universities imposed by Michigan voters in 2006.

Needless to say most of the focus has remained at the income and education inequality. I believe the ‘health’ inequality holds the key. A healthy body has a healthy mind and a healthy mind drives all your effort. Say for example with the talk of recent minimum wage hike from $7.25 to $10.10, someone gets more money and comes out of the poverty. But he or she does not have enough money to buy $6 a pound organic chicken at The Whole Foods or $10 salad at a premium salad joint. As the person is still eating the more or less same food, the health profile of the person does not change and he or she may end up losing that extra income on the health care. Until and unless we find a healthy diet for low income populace, this ‘social’ inequality would persist. Let me share some facts widely known though.

The US is at the 9^th rank among the fattest countries in the world with overweight prevalence of 74%. Many studies have shown that BMI (body mass index) and the wages are inversely proportional and in the US, no surprise that the majority of overweight population is from low income as well as less educated populace.

What we are doing at ‘Nirmal’, a café style Indian restaurant in Ypsilanti, MI is ‘disruptive’ eating as we want to bring ‘Indian cuisine’ to the forefront of the national debate. Nirmal’ is located between 2 great universities in Michigan namely University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti. Incidentally we are just 4 blocks from the first Domino’s Pizza store opened in 1967. We took over from ‘Temptations’, an Indian restaurant since 2009 and transformed it to ‘Nirmal’ in Dec 2013 after 4 years of trials and tribulations, a great learning experience for us. We have many firsts to our credit with respect to Indian food industry here in the US. For more information please visit our website www.nirmalindiancuisine.com  and see ‘Why Indian food’ appendixes under Blog corner. 

Why Indian Cuisine? First the data don’t lie.

1. India is at 176^th rank among the fattest countries with overweight prevalence of 16%.
2. India has 500 million vegetarians, more than all vegetarians combined all over the world.

Most of the credit for these data goes to our ‘Curry’ based food. The ‘Curry’ is a kind of liquid sauce made with some base items like onion, tomato mixed with lot of spices. Off course our culture, tradition and the dominant religion in India ‘Hinduism’ do play a role in our food habits and the eating style. Spices from India have history of almost 5000 years and the benefits of various spices such as turmeric, cumin, ginger, cinnamon etc have been proved through the research done in the US and British universities.

Many analysts tend to brush aside these data points under the carpet of prevailing ‘poverty’ in India.  I would suggest you all to try our ‘Curry’ and judge yourselves. And if you know Indians as your office colleague or neighbor, your job would be much easier.

I am aware of Mediterranean cuisine getting traction in the US in 1990s after almost 50 years if we take into the account the ‘seven countries experiment’ done in 1940s. But with Greece and Egypt ~ 2 Mediterranean countries ~ figuring among top 20 fattest countries with 68-69% overweight prevalence, I do place Indian cuisine a notch higher. Specially the vegetarianism component which can play a big role in reducing the meat consumption in the US and beyond. Also the situation today is much grimmer and we can’t wait for another 50 years.

‘Disruptive’ eating at Nirmal consists of 4 stages, not just simple food and cuisine.

At the first stage, our goal is to raise awareness about BMI (Body Mass Index).

We may be the only restaurant in the US or elsewhere which has a poster ‘KNOW Your BMI’ at the very entrance as well as the back page of our menu. Then we picked up a logo with ‘KNOW-BMI’ and our toll free telephone no as 844-KNOW-BMI. Please see our logo in the menu or at the Facebook page (Nirmal Indian Cuisine). So anyone visiting us at the restaurant or visiting our website or facebook page can’t miss this BMI thing.

We believe knowing BMI is very crucial to a healthy living as being overweight is precursor to the most of the medical issues. We found that only 10% of our patrons knew or how to calculate their BMI though the majority had heard about it. And this is the situation in the university town of Ann Arbor – Ypsilanti.

Then at the second stage we have put calorie charts of the vegetarian options as well as meat options at the walls of the dining hall of our restaurant. Ditto at the back page of the menu. Please see the charts below.                                                                                                                     

Index	Paneer (100gms)	Parmesan Cheese(100gms)	Tofu (100gms)	Soya Chunks (100gms)	Lentils (100gms)
Protein (gms)	18.3	35.75	8	54	26
Fat (gms)	20.8	25.83	3.5	0.4	1
Saturated Fat(gms)	15	16.41	0.5	0	0
Carbohydrates(gms)	1.2	3.22	1.5	28.9	60
Calcium (mgs)	208	1184	130	533	56
Iron (mgs)		0.82	1.1	21.2	7.54
Energy (Cal)	265	392	70	336	353

100gms =3.5 Oz ~ Paneer is Indian cheese, 100% vegetarian ~ Lentils has dietary fiber of 31gms

We are trying to convey 2 messages unequivocally ~ you don’t have to eat ‘meat’ for protein as soya chunks or lentils have twice or equal protein for 5 times less fat than Chicken. Also the  goat’ meat is the healthiest meat around, better than Chicken and people are not even aware of it. We have cited an article ‘Eat Goat’ from Michigan State University, one of the top agriculture research University in the US.

Table 1. Nutrient Composition of Goat and Other Types of Meat [1], [2]
Nutrient	Goat	Chicken	Beef	Pork	Lamb
Calories	122	162	179	180	175
Fat (g)	2.6	6.3	7.9	8.2	8.1
Saturated Fat (g)	0.79	1.7	3.0	2.9	2.9
Protein (g)	23	25	25	25	24
Cholesterol (mg)	63.8	76.0	73.1	73.1	78.2
[1]Per 3 oz. of cooked meat [2] USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 14 (2001)

        

     

At the third stage, we at Nirmal are trying to make Indian food affordable by offering $5 food box for the whole day (11.30 am to 7.30am), a substitute for omnipresent ‘buffet’ priced at $8-10.  Our offerings and price line are unmatched by any Indian restaurant in the US or beyond. For example, we offer entrees in 8 oz (lentils, soya chunks or tofu) in $4 and the naan bread in $1, the cheapest price in the US. So you can get lunch or dinner in $5 as per your choice if you don’t want $5 food box with pre-determined entrees which we post daily on twitter, facebook and our web page. We may be the first Indian restaurant to offer ‘only Curry’ (8 Oz in $3) which people can use as a spread for burgers or dressings for the salad. Please compare these with offerings at other Indian restaurants.

At the final stage, we are giving a sense of gratification to our patrons. First eating at Nirmal which uses bio-degradable table wares, they are a part in this big endeavor of keeping climate clean. And if they can turn vegetarian for a day per week with so many options in Indian cuisine, they would be helping a great cause of reducing the meat consumption and hence the global warming. Think of some facts ~ average per person daily meat consumption in the US is 322 gms (1 pound = 454 gms), the highest in the world if you compare with 220 gms in Europe, 160 gms in China and mere 12 gms in India. Say 100 million people in the US out of 330 million decide to skip meat for one day every week, total annual savings in the meat production would be 0.7 pounds per day x 100 million people x 52 weeks per year ~ a whopping 3.6 billion pound only in the US.

In the nut shell we are positioning Indian cuisine as a healthy diet for low income people who still don’t have options other than the burgers, tacos or pizzas. We live in a global village and in the internet age. No one can change their eating habits overnight. But if we can find some better options for eating well within our means, we can give it a try.

Also with our presence at the campuses since 2009 at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor campus along with 3 others, we are convinced that we have to catch the kids at younger age to get them hooked to Indian cuisine. This time we are trying to target the High schools as well as the middle schools also.

So whatever we have done or trying to do is unique and revolutionary. During my research in the US or beyond, I did not find any restaurant or food chain with such clear cut agenda. Do we expect people to understand our agenda in 3 to 6 months or to change their eating habits, No? We are up against the existing Indian restaurants who have made Indian food synonymous with the dairy cream, oil and the lack of spices making our food bland and top of that with ‘Buffet.’. Also the price tag is much higher making Indian food kind of elite, it is not.

‘Buffet’ is not healthy eating though it is good for introduction to some new cuisines. In India a ‘lunch Buffet’ costs $10-12 whereas the daily (8 hrs) minimum wage is $3-4. Here in the US, a lunch buffet costs $8-9, one hour minimum wage. 2 largest Chinese food chains namely Panda Express and P F Chang do not offer any kind of buffet.  95% of Indian restaurants offer ‘buffet’ here and at such low price they won’t be able to do justice with the quality of Indian cuisine.

People go for Indian food once a month indulging in a kind of extravagance not bothering about the health effect. We want the people to eat our food once a week. 

 I believe we have already impacted the lives of one million people or more since 2009.

During our stint at the campuses and at our present location since 2009, we served Indian cuisine to almost 100K people. Most of them almost 90% become the repeat customers for Indian food. So wherever they go almost 70% University of Michigan students leave Michigan, they stick to Indian food as it is healthy and flavorful and they can afford it easily.

In this internet age, we communicate through social media and people talk about what they are eating. Assuming 10% of these 100K people are on Facebook or twitter or other social media and has a average of 100 unique Facebook friends out of 500 plus friends, we are talking about reaching more than one million people. Then in addition we have more than 500 unique visitors to our website every month or 100 page views for our blog at this point and you need to multiply these figures by 100 at the minimum to get the social media impact. The sphere of our impact is growing by the day.

In our new avatar ‘Nirmal’, we are targeting the 80% of the population, the low income and the less educated people. Till now only 10% of US population could afford the Indian food always in the price range of $8-$10 for a meal. Now we brought it down to $5, competing with burgers or tacos to wean away that segment of population to Indian food. It still surprises me in 2009 we became the first Indian food vendor at the cafeterias at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

This is not one man’s job or I am not driven by profit. I want other Indian restaurants or even other restaurants to follow us at least for BMI and Calorie education. Then only we would achieve the ‘disruptive’ character of Nirmal. When I decided to pursue MBA at Ross School of Business, University of Michigan in 2006, I was inspired by Late Prof C.K.Prahalad at Ross and his concept of the business reaching out to the ‘bottom of Pyramid’ and eradicating poverty through profitability. 

Some pending future items would have huge impact in our effort as detailed below:

a.    Cooking classes with grocery at hand ~ At ‘Nirmal’ café, we plan to offer ‘free’ cooking classes to the local populace on Sundays, our off day and then guide them to buy materials for cooking at home from our make-shift grocery store provided by the local Indian grocery stores at the reduced prices . This would serve 2 purposes ~ first to dispel the myth about Indian food being spicy, messy or oily etc and bring the cost of lunch or dinner further down  for a family of 4 from $20 (assuming 4 food boxes) to $10 if cooked at home. We want Indian cuisine to be the part of regular meal for the low income populace. Later we want to take the 'Cooking classes' to the apartment complexes and the community centers etc.
                      

b.    Bombay dabbawala & drive-through ~ To develop own delivery network to deliver the lunch or dinner at the offices and the homes on the pattern of Bombay dabbawala which is a delivery network in Mumbai, India. Also the drive-through would bring us at par with the other fast food restaurants like Wendy, Taco Bell etc.

 

These 2 items would be the integral components of Nirmal going forward as we need to expand our outreach. We are aiming for Fall 2014 launch.

c. The Book and the video game on ‘disruptive eating’ ~ We are working on both with the target of launching in Summer 2015.

The book titled ‘Disruptive eating’- Empowering everyone to change the world ~  would detail our journey from ‘Temptations’, a fine-dining restaurant with Full Bar to ‘Nirmal’,  a self-service café with the mantra ‘Eat Healthy Drink Healthy.’ We would explain how ‘disruptive eating’ can make our community, country and the world a better place and how each of us has a role to play. This would also contain a section on Indian food items with easy to cook instructions. This book aims to promote cooking at the home.

  The video game titled ‘Nirmal’ - Save the world(Nirmal means Pure) would be targeted at kids (8 -13   years of age). Kids would be able to calculate their BMI and observe the changes in their BMI as they go on eating at home or outside. Also how their veggie eating or use of bio-degradable products can impact the global warming.

   The idea is to let kids become aware of the BMI, the calorie values of the food items and the global warming issues at young age through the game they would love to play. Also they earn some points at the game converting them to the food box or the gift cards at the Nirmal.

       d. Expansion ~ The present location at Ypsilanti is 4000 sq ft.  For ‘Nirmal’ café with self-service, we need at most $1000 sq ft to operate provided we get food from CPD (central production cum distribution center) at Ypsilanti location as we serve at the campuses. We plan to expand at other towns like Ann Arbor, Canton and Detroit in the first phase in Michigan. Beyond Michigan, there are 3500 Indian restaurants in 1000+ cities in the US and it would be easier to convert at least one restaurant per city to Nirmal if we succeed in Michigan. Our aim is to become the first Indian food chain in the world.

 

This is the best time to bring Indian cuisine at the center stage given the fact that now we  have the first White House occupant who have had the college room-mates from the Indian sub-continent and who gets a birth-day treat (2013) at an Indian restaurant in Washington D.C. And needless to emphasize that President Obama has unflinching commitment to tackle the both issues which we are targeting with ‘disruptive’ eating.

Let us join hands together to make the world a better place to live and let live.
 

(The author of this article is an MBA from Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and a Co-Founder of ‘Nirmal’ )