India has been celebrating National Nutrition Week since 1982.

Through public awareness campaigns, seminars and discourse, the country gets the conversation going about sound eating habits and an active lifestyle.

But while September 1 to 7 is a dedicated time for this cause, these changemakers are doing it all year round.

1. Sri Harsha Co-founded by friends Sri Harsha, Sharath Chandra and Nirali Parikh in 2022, ‘Hypothalamus’ is a health-focused meal delivery service for patients with cancer, diabetes, PCOS, etc.

They provide their subscribers as well as six hospitals in India with healthy items such as tofu bottle gourd millet dosa, sesame green gram khichdi,  bottle gourd brown rice dosa, etc.

The six-meal package is priced at Rs 600 a day.

2. Mahesh RV This biotech engineer from Karnataka has been growing spirulina — a green superfood — as a way of helping children who battle malnutrition.

Through his endeavour ‘Spirulina Foundation’ Mahesh grows 1.5 tonnes of this blue-green algae, which he then turns into sugar-coated capsules.

The capsules are priced at Rs 300 for 120 tablets, while they are free for malnourished kids.

3. Veer Shetty Biradar In 2006, this Telangana native was inspired to start growing millets after a trip to Beed, Maharashtra, exposed him to the reality of starvation.

Today, his venture SS Bhavani Foods is making sorghum, bajra, foxtail millet and finger millet accessible to people in rural India especially children.

The Hyderabad-based ventures has come up with over 60 value-added millet products and even exported over “2000 rotis to Australia”.

4. Shashanka Ala The IAS officer noticed that by the time produce arrived from Assam to Lawngtai, Mizoram, it would perish.

So she decided to start a programme that would help Anganwadis grow native varieties of local fruits and vegetables, the way she would in her own garden.

Today, small-duration crops like turmeric, ginger, tomatoes, corn, and radish are grown in over 213 schools and Anganwadis, thus reducing their dependency on outside produce.

5. Parul Sharma When Parul’s son was diagnosed with protein deficiency, it was a wake-up call for the new mother, who decided to experiment with tasty protein-filled food for him.

Parul says that she experimented with close to 36 different recipes and worked with soy, whey and even various kinds of brown rice and peas in their products.

Gladful, the brand started by Parul and her brother Manu, has cookies, sprouted chilla dosa mixes and a variety of other protein-rich snacks.

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