Like many people who fall in love with cooking, my journey began with baking.
As a teenager, I baked birthday cakes for family and friends with lots of excitement. I loved watching a cake rise in the oven, carefully decorating double-layer cakes and seeing the smiles they brought to birthdays and family celebrations. Back then, our pantry looked much like everyone else's, refined flour, eggs, butter, white sugar, vanilla (often vanillin) and baking powder.
At that stage, I was immensely proud of my creations. Baking felt magical. As I grew older, however, another curiosity quietly took over.
I began noticing how food affected my skin, my energy, how I felt after a meal. I wanted to understand what food was actually doing inside the body. That curiosity eventually led me to study nutrition and changed the way I looked at every ingredient that entered my kitchen when I started to live on my own.
I started questioning where ingredients came from and what they were doing to us. Refined flour. Highly processed fats. Artificial colours. Preservatives. Flavourings. Excessive sugar. Without making a dramatic decision, my interests naturally shifted.
Instead of perfecting cakes and cookies, I found myself fascinated by the everyday meals my mother cooked, the meals our friends and family always looked forward to. I learnt how vegetables could become the centre of the plate, how grains and legumes nourished us, and how spices could transform the simplest ingredients into something magical.
Little by little, baking disappeared from my kitchen.
Travel Changed My Perspective Again
Years later, while studying, travelling and living in Europe and North America, I found myself surrounded by extraordinary bakeries that made flaky croissants, poppy seed rolls, beautiful French pastries, Italian pies lovingly baked by nonnas, rustic sourdoughs, delicate desserts, the famous biscotti of Tuscany. Of course I tasted many of them. They were tasty..
But by then I could no longer eat them without thinking about what had gone into them. Refined flour. Refined sugar. Butter in astonishing quantities. Margarine. Refined oils. Artificial flavours. Colours. Preservatives.
Once you learn how a traditional croissant is made with layer upon layer of butter (or sometimes margarine or vanaspati) folded repeatedly into refined flour, you begin to admire the craftsmanship while also realising it isn't something your body needs.
Slowly, my desire for conventional bakery foods faded, not because I was forcing myself to avoid them, but because my body simply stopped craving them. It will happen to anyone who really understands what goes into those bakes!
Then Came Vibrant Living
When I started Vibrant Living over fifteen years ago, baking wasn't on my priority list not even on my plate to be honest.
I was far more interested in creating nourishing meals, wholesome snacks, fermented foods, millet dishes, soups, salads and everyday foods people could enjoy regularly.
But our customers kept asking.
"Do you have healthy cookies? What about cakes, brownies?"
Clearly there was a need for baked treats that people could enjoy without compromising on ingredients or feel guilty eating.
That challenge became one of the most enjoyable creative journeys of my life.
Reimagining Baking
One of my earliest experiments was a buckwheat ginger snap cookie.
That one recipe opened an entirely new world.
I realised baking didn't have to depend on refined flour, white sugar, butter, eggs or artificial ingredients.
Every recipe at Vibrant Living starts with one simple question:
How can we recreate something delicious using ingredients we would happily serve our own family?
That question has guided every bake we've created since.
Instead of refined flour, we use buckwheat, sprouted ragi, jowar, almond flour, heirloom wheat varieties and other wholesome flours.
Instead of white sugar, we reach for dates, jaggery, coconut jaggery, ripe bananas, figs, apples, sapota and occasionally misri when it genuinely suits the recipe.
Instead of refined vegetable oils, we use cold-pressed oils in minimal quantities, nuts, seeds and nut butters.
Our vanilla comes from real vanilla pods or natural vanilla extract, never artificial vanillin.
And if colour is needed, nature gives us everything we need through fruits, vegetables and spices.
The result isn't "healthy food that tastes healthy, it is simply delicious baking made with ingredients that honour the body”.
Old Memories, New Recipes
One cake I particularly missed was the Christmas plum cake.
Growing up, I absolutely loved those rich festive cakes filled with colourful candied fruits. Every Christmas they would appear in bakeries and homes, dense, moist and full of flavour. During my travels I also fell in love with beautifully rich cakes like Cayman rum cake, Bibinka from Goa and other fruit-filled festive bakes.
But as I learnt more about food, I could no longer ignore the brightly coloured candied fruits that often went into these cakes. Most of those cheerful reds and greens came from artificial colours that I simply didn't want to eat anymore.
So instead of giving up something I loved, I decided to recreate it.
After some trials, we developed a completely vegan Christmas plum cake using clean dried fruits, wholesome ingredients and natural sweetness. It has become one of our family's favourites and one of the recipes I am most proud of.
In fact, I've shared the complete recipe on our YouTube channel while teaching actress Samantha, because good food is meant to be shared.
Another favourite came from my childhood in Telangana.
Every rainy season our farm worker would gather palm fruit (thati kaya) that had naturally fallen from the trees. The soft pulp was extracted, mixed with coarse rice flour, jaggery and fresh coconut to make a rustic thick rotti cooked slowly until crisp on both the sides and fragrant. Those flavours stayed with me for decades.
At Vibrant Living, we gave that traditional recipe a new expression by transforming it into soft thati kai muffins and tea cakes using jowar flour, jowar rava and sometimes a little brown rice. The familiar aroma remained, but the recipe became lighter, cleaner and something a new generation could enjoy. The recipe for this too is on our Youtube channel while I am making it together with my friend actor Sumanth.
Those recipes remind me that innovation doesn't always mean inventing something new. Sometimes it simply means remembering what our grandmothers already knew and giving it new life with so much gratitude.
A Bakery That Reflects Our Values
Over the years our collection has continued to grow.
Today you'll find our crisp biscotti inspired by the famous Cantuccini di Prato, buckwheat ginger snap cookies, simple three-ingredient sprouted ragi and wheat cookies, rich almond and buckwheat brownies, chocolate banana walnut cake, pineapple cake, dark chocolate cake, jowar and ash gourd muffins, banana and beetroot muffins naturally sweetened with dates, creamy vegan tiramisu, our Chocolate Layered Indulgence, and our raw food pies with naturally sweetened almond-and-date crusts filled with flavours like chocolate, mocha, vanilla, mango, soursop, jamun and sitaphal. There are many more that I am not remembering as I am writing this and many adding as our demand grows and our creativity flows.
Each one carries a story. A place I travelled. A memory from childhood. A traditional recipe.
Or simply the belief that wholesome ingredients can create extraordinary food.
You Don't Have to Become Perfect Overnight
One of the biggest misconceptions about healthy eating is that it requires an overnight transformation. It doesn't.
Our food choices are shaped by memories, emotions, hormones, habits, celebrations, stress and cravings. Change happens gently. Be kind to yourself.
You don't have to give up everything you love. Simply make one better choice today than you made yesterday. Fill most of your meals with vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds. When your body is deeply nourished, you'll naturally crave fewer processed foods.
And when you do feel like enjoying something baked, choose something made with ingredients that respect your body.
Over time something beautiful happens. Your taste buds change. Your cravings get milder. Your body begins asking for nourishment instead of stimulation.
Even wholesome cakes and cookies become an occasional pleasure, not because you're exercising willpower, but because you're genuinely satisfied.
To me, that is what healthy eating looks like.
Not restricting nor perfection. Simply moving, one choice at a time, towards food that nourishes both body and soul.
If you're curious about what clean baking can taste like, we'd love to welcome you to Vibrant Living. Every sourdough loaf, cookie, brownie, muffin and cake that leaves our kitchen carries the same promise, to recreate the foods we love with ingredients we can truly feel good about sharing.
Hope this story inspires you to choose clean bakes.
