OUR MISSION, VISION & THEORY OF CHANGE
Mission
Encourage an evidence-based healthy dietary lifestyle to reverse, and prevent, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and breast & prostate cancer to enhance our collective well-being (personal, familial, societal, intergenerational, and interspecies well-being).
Vision
Communities that share skills to grow, cook, and compost food for our collective well-being.
Theory of Change
Through mindfulness-based hands-on, local, and simplified experiential learning we pass on skills to grow, cook, and compost food to encourage an evidence-based healthy (and tasty) dietary lifestyle that is whole-foods, plant-based, organic, and seasonal.
THE TEAM
Founder, Culinarian
Center for Nutrition Studies Plant-Based Nutrition & Wageningen Nutrition and Health Certificates (on-going). Based in Ossining, NY.

Noura Embabi
Co-Founder, Culinarian
Skills in chillas, dosas, dals, rotis, and pressure cookers. Became Vegan as an adult. Also co-founder of An-Nas. Based in Ossining, NY.

Neelam Gupta
Co-Founder, Culinarian
Decades of Indian vegetarian cooking experience; taught cooking in Japan. Conveyor of heirloom recipes. Based in Powai, Mumbai.

Ranjana Gupta
Co-Founder, Culinarian
Growing, and cooking, food in Uttar Pradesh for decades. Conveyor of heirloom recipes. Based in Powai, Mumbai.

Deepak Gupta
Culinary & Org. Advisor
Founded China’s best Indian restaurant – Vaastu. Famous for his Chana Masala. Based in Powai, Mumbai.
From 2008 to 2013, my father and I created and ran Guangzhou, China’s Best Indian restaurant (as voted in a local magazine for three years) – Vaastu, a date with India. As I learned about social justice issues, like food insecurity and climate change, I moved to Mumbai, India and began working on climate change mitigation in 2015 with cBalance Solutions. In 2016, I turned vegan after watching Cowspiracy, and discussions with my vegan partner, Noura. In 2019, through Project Drawdown, I realized how deep, and vast, the connection is between food and climate change – 8 of the top 20 solutions relate to the food system. I subsequently watched the documentaries ‘Forks Over Knives’, ‘The C Word’, ‘What the Health’, and ‘Plant Pure Nation’. I then learned about SHARAN, based in Mumbai, who focus on the prevention and reversal of diabetes, and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases. I took two cooking classes with them, and began to learn how to cook from my mom, aunt, and grandmother. I then clearly saw the strong link between personal health, planetary health, and animal health. I realized that by learning cooking, I was empowering myself to make tasty and healthy (whole-foods plant-based) meals to avoid relying on corporations to choose what I eat (when I buy packaged “factory-made” food). My journey continues as I learn the science behind whole-foods plant-based nutrition through the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate.
Personal Motivation
Several family members have developed lifestyle-related chronic health conditions including type 2 diabetes, cancer, and hypertension. Without an intervention, I am sure that many more family members, and friends, are at risk to get such diseases due to their lifestyle.
– Dhruv Gupta
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Ahara means dietary lifestyle in Sanskrit. The Oxford dictionary defines ‘diet’ as “the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.” Well-being philosophies like yoga expand this definition of diet to link nutrition to the health of one’s body and mind by emphasizing the quality of food, quantity consumed, and attitude when we cook and eat.
Based on nutritional science, the kinds of food we favor are those in the A range of the EXSALUS Food Continuum*, ideally whole plant foods. The quality of food we favor is seasonal and locally-grown from small-scale organic farms that use animal waste to fertilize the soil. The quantity one requires to be satiated can be experienced through mindful eating. The attitude with which one eats could have three aspects:
1) Gratitude: Consider the food’s journey from seed to plate, and all the sentient beings involved in the process, from those who fertilized the soil to those who prepared the meal (including yourself);
2) Wonder: Consider how you – each cell and neuron – are literally made up of what you consume – food, water, and air;
3) Conservation: Because of the prior two considerations, cultivate an attitude to not waste.
Sushila Gupta
Co-Founder, Culinarian
Growing, and cooking, food in Uttar Pradesh since the 1950s. Chief conveyor of heirloom recipes. Based in Powai, Mumbai.
Ahara emphasizes balanced nutrition for a healthy body and mind through:
the kinds of food: whole plant foods
quality:
seasonal, local, small-scale organic
quantity:
mindful eating till satiated
attitude:
gratitude, wonder, conservation
*This image is sourced from this website: https://lms.ecornell.com/courses/1331960/pages/watch-the-exsalus-food-continuum?module_item_id=16096081. As mentioned on this website, “The Exsalus Food Continuum is reprinted with permission from Drs. Alona Pulde and Matthew Lederman.”