Leading The Way

As an increasing number of celebrities around the world switch to an organic lifetyles, we bring you a few names that might ring a bell and speak louder in favour of an organic lifestyle.

1. Gwyneth Paltrow

This ‘Shakespeare In Love’ actress has a focus to “nourish the inner aspect” according to her food philosophy of eating locally, seasonally and always organically.

2. Julia Roberts

The Pretty Woman is feeding her family organic food…AND from her own organic garden!

3. Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman also grows her own organic veggies.

4. Brooke Shields

Brooke Shields uses BabySoy, clothing made from soybean fibers and renewable materials, in addition to other organic products.

5. ‘Monica’ or Courteney Cox And husband, Scream Star David Arquette

Better known as Monica from the popular TV series friends, she launched her own organic clothing line Propr along with her husband David Arquette.

6. Jennifer Lopez

7. Elizabeth Hurley

8. ‘Spiderman’ or Tobey Maguire and his wife Jennifer Meyer

It was Jen Meyer who recommended Organic Matters, a company that offers recycled alternatives to many commercially manufactured goods, to Courteney Cox. Jen Meyer even inspired Courteney Cox to switch to more eco-friendly beauty products.

Have you heard of any celebs supporting an organic lifestyle lately? Let us know in the comments…

Organic Honey: Nature’s Blessing Delivered In All It’s Goodness

In the wake of revelations about Indian Honey brands not complying with International standards and posing serious health risks to consumers, ProNature takes a look at Organic Honey and how exactly it is different from the branded honey available in the market.

The production of organic honey involves conforming to a set of strict standards, without which the honey cannot even get an organic certification. Right from keeping area around the beehives free of any chemical residues to the packaging, the process is monitored at every step. The bees and the samples are regularly checked for contamination. Even the flowers and plants are kept free from any non-organic elements including pesticides. The same is kept in mind while packaging or transporting the honey; no contamination is allowed to happen at any stage. It is an intensive process that ensures that only the most natural and pure from of nature’s goodness reaches the consumers. 

As a result of these stringent quality checks involved in the production of organic honey, organic honey is free from any pesticide residues. It is also ensured that the bees are not administered antibiotics to keep them disease free and hence contamination by antibiotics is not possible in organic honey. Raw organic honey has the additional benefit of the antioxidants and phytonutrients are maintained at natural levels. 

Honey is nature’s blessing to mankind. It boosts immunity and has antioxidants that help fight cancer. It is also useful in a number of common ailments that we suffer from. It is only fair that these benefits be preserved and made available to the consumers as it is and not through contaminated honey that poses health risks rather than make them healthy. And to ensure this, organic honey is the wisest choice. 

Why Organic – Because We Are All Part Of A Bigger Social Fabric

Organic food and farming are not only good from the perspective of our own health and our environment but also from a social perspective. In this last post in of the series, ProNature looks at the why and how.

Organic farming, at the outset, protects a farm worker’s health. Their exposure to harmful and toxic chemicals is lower in organic farming and they run a lower risk of cancer, respiratory problems and other major diseases. So going organic is a sign of our commitment towards other people and towards a healthier planet.

Supporting an organic lifestyle also amounts to supporting a true economy where there are no hidden costs related to pesticide regulation and testing, hazardous waste disposal and environmental damage. Most organic farms are independently owned and operated family farms. The farmers are paid higher dividends for the farm produce. The costs incurred for manure and pest control are significantly lesser than conventional farming and the model becomes self-sustainable over a period of time.

In other words, our support for the organic movement will also ultimately alleviate problems like farmer suicides and lead to a better world where there is fairness and justice for the people who provide for all of us. 

Why Organic – Because We Must Protect Our Planet

As ProNature continues to take you through the benefits of organic food, today we focus on the environmental benefits of organic food products.

Way back during the time of the green revolution, chemical fertilizers and pesticides came in and revolutionized farming. At least they seemed to. Traditional and age-old methods of farming were replaced with chemical-based supportives and machines. And it worked well for a many years before the true fallout started rearing its ugly head.

The truth is that by using chemical fertilizers that enrich the soil with only the major minerals like Potassium, Phosphorus etc instead of more than fifteen that the soil really needs, we are in fact depleting the soil more than enriching it. Over a period of time, the soil is robbed of its fertility and is unable to yield the same crop for the same quantity of fertilizers. That sets off a vicious cycle of adding more and more fertilizer to the soil by the season and depleting it like never before.

In organic farming, soil is the foundation of the food. Organic farming systems use a variety of natural processes – sustainable crop rotations, maintenance of biodiversity, optimum crop health, composting - to enhance the health of crops and the soil and reduce the incidence of pests, diseases and weeds, thereby minimizing the need for chemical inputs. Organic farming uses natural manure that truly enriches the soil in the real sense and hence sustains the natural cycle of life on Earth. Also, organic foods are not sprayed with a potpourri of pesticides that kill any life-system surrounding a farm-ecology. So any organic farm is buzzing with life and the goodness of nature.  Organic farms support and nurture our beautiful and diverse wildlife. 

Organic farming, food and lifestyle is a holistic way of spending and sharing our time on planet Earth, the only planet that sustains life in our solar system and one that our children will inhabit. For that reason, it is the wisest option to switch to organic and help protect the planet in addition to protecting our own health.

Why Organic - Because Health Is Wealth

In keeping with ProNature’s dream of making organic the lifestyle and food of choice, let’s look at some of the reasons why organic food is good for us starting with health.

Organic food is the best way to eat food that nature had intended for us to eat. Organic food products are free from any additives that can cause health problems such as heart disease, osteoporosis, migraines and hyperactivity. The foods are not genetically modified either. Organic food products are known to be healthier with a higher nutritional content as compared to food that is grown chemically. They also taste better, enriching the whole experience of eating. And that, in a nutshell, means that eating organic food is the healthiest and most non-intrusive way of getting nutrition for our bodies.

Organic foods are also free from any chemical fertilizers and pesticides. So no pesticide residues in any of the food on our dining tables. No artificial poisons on the skins of any fruits we consume. Organic food is not covered in any such cocktail of poisonous chemicals. 

The FDA approved many pesticides before research linked them to chemicals that cause cancer and other diseases.   Now the EPA a majority of fungicides, herbicides and insecticides to be carcinogenic. So eating organic food ensures a near-zero exposure to these carcinogens introduced by pesticides. Pesticides have also been linked to reduced sperm concentrations, cord blood contamination for the foetus and breast milk contamination among new mothers. All this exposure to pesticides puts an entire generation ahead of us at serious health risk and switching to an organic diet significantly reduces this pre-natal and neonatal exposure to harmful chemicals.

Go Organic!

There is strong and increasing evidence that just by choosing organic foods over conventional foods, you can decrease your pesticide levels. Whether it’s our clothing and our cleaning products, our gardening, how we handle pests in the home, people will be looking for more natural ways of doing it that are effective. We need to help close the loop for people, since every little change we make helps tilt the odds in favor of kids.

Organic certification is the public's assurance that products have been grown and handled according to strict procedures without the use of persistent and toxic chemicals. Only farmers who pass evaluation by other certified growers and by a trained independent inspector can label their products certified organic.

Even a 50% organic diet helps reduce your chemical intake significantly. So eat out and freak out, but at home switch to organic! Because health is the true wealth.

Our Story And Our Dream

It was when Varun Gupta was working with the Global Green Company at the turn of the millennium that he had his first brush with food exports. He was handling exports of spices to the US at the time. It was also the time he was introduced to the concept of organic food, a concept that appealed to him because of its holistic approach, and he was able to persuade the management of Global Green Company to allow the export of organic food. And that started a niche category of business for the Global Green Company.

Even after Varun moved out of the Global Green Company, his wife Nidhi realized his passion for organic food and tried to persuade him to take it up. Varun offered to support Nidhi in spreading the goodness of organic food around the world and in 2001 Nidhi started Organic Foods India so organic spices from India could reach other parts of the world. And Varun decided to join Nidhi in this endeavour in the year 2005.

Soon Varun and Nidhi realized that instead of exporting to markets outside, they should concentrate on the domestic markets and on establishing organic foods better in India. With this in mind, the ProNature brand was launched in early 2006. And it was registered as a company soon after.

Over the next the next few months, ProNature struggled with various delivery models in its aim to provide competitively priced organic food to the consumers despite its high production cost. These included direct-to-home and tying up with specialty stores to enter the niche segment. Over these months of learning, Varun and Nidhi realized that organic foods needed to become more easily available at the neighbourhood stores where people were used to buying groceries from.

With this learning ProNature Organic Foods started to enter the markets as an FMCG player with ProNature products being made available at major supermarkets in Bangalore. The idea was to educate consumers about the obvious advantages of organic food starting right from the taste by enabling them to try the highest quality products straight from the shelves.

It has been 3 years since the dream has taken off and today ProNature continues to support the philosophy of an organic lifestyle actively. Garnering more support for the organic movement is one of the things ProNature aims to achieve through this blog.

Our dream is to make organic food the food of choice for the consumers and integrate it into their lifestyles seamlessly. The dream is just taking wings and we hope it soars high in the sky someday soon.

Who We Are

Pro Nature Organic Foods is in the business of bringing to consumers good quality certified organic food products under the umbrella brand “Pro Nature”. Our mission is to promote and market certified organic foods so as to make it the food of choice for health conscious and environment conscious consumers and to make it easily available through a sound distribution network.

The company started in the year 2001 by foraying into the export of certified organic spices like White Pepper, Turmeric and Mustard to countries like the USA, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. In the year 2006, we shifted focus to the domestic markets and moved into the organic retail space with our range of organic products that include:

• Breakfast Products: Broken wheat, Sooji/Rava etc
• Flours: Wheat Flour, Besan, Soya Flour, etc.
• Pulses: Moong, Urad, Chana, Rajma, etc.
• Spices: about twenty different spices and masalas used in Indian cuisine.
• Honey

All our products are certified organic and we aim to build a comprehensive line-up of products that allows the consumers to get onto a completely organic lifestyle even when it comes to products that are required in the day-to-day routine. Our products are available at your neighbourhood store across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu. As of now we have one unit, certified organic by an internationally recognised Switzerland based certification body IMO Control, where organic products are stored, cleaned and packed in retail packs and distributed through distributors to retail stores.

Our strong contacts in the organic food industry help us to constantly build on our product line-up and ensure that all the products are certified organic. We work closely with farmers and suppliers to procure the best organic agricultural products for our discerning consumers. We are committed to:

• Healthy food for healthy living with a 100% commitment to certified organic.
• Environmental sustainability balanced with economic viability
• Localisation and bio-diversity.
• Integrity and fair dealing.

Through this blog we intend to keep in touch with you as we all work towards a better tomorrow. Let us all go back to the future, back to nature.