Indian Supermarket Images

Indian Supermarkets are not less than any other supermarkets in the world although they may not be so many large ones. All these photographs are of the food section of the hypermarket.

A supermarket aisle of a leading chain of supermarket stores in Western India. 

Stocked shelves of health food drinks and other food items in the grocery aisle of a supermarket in Mumbai.

Here is a photographs of a supermarket aisle with the workers arranging the goods on the shelves. The typical supermarket in an Indian urban centre employs scores of young people, mostly out of school or college. And it has become a great social hub as you often see the boys and girls more engrossed in themselves than in the customers! Working in an air-conditioned, clean environment, even if for long hours at a stretch is a dream come true for many of these youngsters. It has also created employment opportunities for the middle classes. 

Packaged lentils being displayed in a supermarket aisle. A large trolley with food items in large cardboard boxes is doing the rounds to further stock up the shelves.

A customer examining the various products on display at a food supermarket.

You might also like: Supermarket pictures - crockery, tomato puree, coconut milk, cheese and butter or Fruit Vendors vs supermarkets or Small Retailers in India or photos of Markets.
Or check out these posts: Juice and Milk display at supermarkets in India or Frozen fish at supermarket or For Sale Signboards in India or click on the label Retail.

How to recognize a fake Tata Tetley tea bag

We were served fake Tata Tetley tea in a resort in Gujarat. We knew the difference immediately as we use Tata Tetley at home all the time.

You can see the off white crumpled tea bag on the left of the image which shows the poor quality of the paper. The logo used is the same but the colour of the blue paper label is also a little different. We brought the fake tea bags home and then placed it side by side with the original tea bags. Without an original to compare to, it was not easy to tell the difference by looking at it. It was the taste that made us immediately realise that it was fake.

It was not easy to spot the difference in the way the actual tea looks. The one on the left is the fake one. After dunking in the tea bag the color of the tea turned dark almost immediately but the genuine tea took a fairly long time to get the golden colour. It is obvious that a colouring substance was used. The fake tea had no taste at all and that is how we knew it was spurious tea. We ordered another batch of tea, and then took the fake tea bags home as samples. Then compared it to the original Tata Tetley tea bags. The difference was obvious.

You might also like Genuine 500 rupee notes mistaken for fake
More interesting images: Should you take Multi Vitamins and Mineral tablets? or Coke Calories or Muesli Nutrition Comparison and misleading labelling
or try any of the labels below this post.

Should you take Multi Vitamins and Mineral tablets?

There has been a lot of discussion as to whether multi vitamins and multi minerals should be taken regularly. Latest research seems to suggest that they are not necessary, and even harmful for healthy people. This is misleading. What is required is an intelligent approach. Taking them blindly can indeed be harmful.

Why they should be taken:

1) Everyone does not have a good diet.
2) Some high stressed and active individuals may need the supplements. Also the elderly and those who smoke, drink alcohol etc.

These multi vitamin supplements should be taken with the following precautions:

1) Read labels so that you do not over dose. For example the human body cannot ingest more than 600 mg of calcium at a time so what is the point of over loading the body with a 1000 mg tablet at one go? And if you have some natural calcium in your diet why do you need to take the amount you are taking?

2) The vitamin and mineral dosages do not take into consideration that you may be getting some of the stuff from natural sources. So taking half the tablet at a time makes sense. Or perhaps twice week. Supradyn for example has far too much of certain vitamins and that is why you will be over dosing if you take it everyday. Also, formulations are wrong and skewed in many cases. So read the labels and find out what your body needs according to your age and lifestyle and what your diet is all about.
Yes, a doctor should tell you this but they vulnerable to marketing by pharma companies. Don't trust your doctor to give you the right brand name. Asking him for advise in this matter is also fruitless as they will spout out some known brands. Do the research yourself.

These are imported health supplements in bottles. The tablets at the bottom is not a supplement but a medicine.

You might also like images of Muesli Nutrition Comparison and misleading labelling or Processed foods in India or How to recognize a fake Tata Tetley tea bag

Coke Calories

400 ml of coke is 170kcal, as it says so clearly on the pack, on the top left side of the label, just above the brand name Coca Cola. This contains 44 gms of sugar which = 10 teaspoons of sugar. All the best to those who drink this poison! All bottled drinks should carry a calorie label.

Not surprising considering that so much of it is just sugar. But wait, the main ingredient is carbonated water and then comes the sugar. And naturally to balance out all this acidic mix, they need an acidity regulator which is the third ingredient. And then the natural colours and flavous. What one can be sure of is that there is nothing natural about this drink. Alcohol is more natural. Banning coke is a better idea than banning alcohol.

You might also like: Obesity statistics of the world or Images of overweight people or Obesity silhouettes  or Sketches and images of feet on a weighing machine
Or another high calorie food - Sausages and Fries or Pastries Croissants and cheesecake or Indian Sweets or Mithai or Chocolate Donuts photograph and illustration

More unhealthy food: Processed foods in India or Biscuit packs photos or Instant Noodles Stock Photo

Or try images of Muesli Nutrition Comparison and misleading labelling

Muesli Nutrition Comparison and misleading labelling

Which Muesli product is the most nutritious and which breakfast brand of Muesli has the least calorific value? What does the nutrition information tell us? Muesli by itself is a high calorie food because of the nut and sugar content. 1 small katori is about 60 grams of muesli (half a cup) and this can contain about 180-200 calories.

Bagrry's No Added Sugar Crunchy Muesli, if compared to another Bagrry's Muesli product with added sugar, should logically contain fewer calories, right? Otherwise why advertise it as "No Added Sugar" on the food label? The calorific difference is just 1 calorie as seen in the nutrition information! The No Added Sugar Muesli is 119 cals for 30 grams and 398 cals for 100 grams, even though this high calorie muesli has no nuts, just rolled oats and  bran, wheat flakes and bran, and apple juice concentrates. Where are the calories coming from then? This makes one doubt the nutritive value of Muesli as a breakfast food.

The other Crunchy Muesli from Bagrry's has the same ingredients but added sugar, honey and raisins, corn flakes, and also almonds and yet it is 120 cals for 30 grams and 399 cals for 100 grams! Just one calorie more than the No Sugar and no nuts variety? Something seriously wrong here. Misleading and false claims by Bagrry's one would think.

Express Foods' Harvest Crunch has similar ingredients like nuts and honey, and it is 123 cals for 30 grams, just slightly over the Bagrry's nut mixture. However this is a very poor quality product. I have bought it several months before the expiry date but it still emanates a stale stink. Probably due to inferior quality ingredients. Avoid this one if you can.

Interestingly, a muesli mixture of dried nuts and fruits (the Indian brands referred to here have a very small quantity of nuts and hardly any dried fruit) from a developed country is just 118 for 30 grams. This too with a far larger number of nuts! And muesli without nuts and fruits from a developed country is 108 calories for 30 grams, with sugar included! And Sainsburry's no added sugar muesli with nuts is only about 106 cals for 30 grams.

Our Indian brands skimp on the nuts, but put a high calorie count on their labels, it would appear. Either the labels are wrong or we are consuming hidden calories. Even if we assume that developed countries like the UK and the USA are labelling their products wrong despite the strict labelling laws there, the minimal difference between two products of Baggry's (one with sugar, another without) raises suspicions.

The reason I have not mentioned Kelloggs here is that I cannot eat their muesli and never buy it. I hate those little fruity brightly coloured fake food that they put in their muesli. Also I think their value for money equation is very poor. I am not at all satisfied with the quality, and I consider Kelloggs worse that Harvest Crunch and Bagrry's. Unfortunately their distribution might ensures that they sell their products!

Related Images: or How to recognize a fake Tata Tetley tea bag or
Obesity statistics of the world or Obesity silhouettes or Images of overweight people
High Calorie Food - Sausages and Fries or Processed foods in India or Should you take Multi Vitamins and Mineral tablets?
Sketches and images of feet on a weighing machine or pictures of Gymnasium and training equipment

Genuine 500 rupee notes mistaken for fake

All five hundred rupee notes do not look the same! This seems obvious, considering that some are old and some new, but because of the panic over fake notes, genuine notes can be mistaken for fake. The 500 rupee notes in this post are all genuine, but you can see the difference between an older note of the nineties and the newer ones.

This is a sample of the front of the newer 500 rupee note. It matches with the critieria of all genuine notes as put out by the RBI  the see through number in the left margin, the watermark, the thick shiny security thread and so on. By clicking on the link you can check the points.

The note below can be mistaken for fake by an over zealous person trying to check for genuine notes. It is the front of a 500 rupee note and it looks quite different from the one above. However, this note, signed by the RBI Governer Bimal Jalan is absolutely genuine. The note has a thinner shiny vertical band (security thread) unlike the newer note which has a thicker one, and it does not have the see through number (register). Instead it has a flower design in the left margin. These notes were printed between November 22nd 1997 to Sep 6th 2003. Why was their design changed? The attempt was to make the 500 rupee notes difficult to copy.

Does this mean that cheats and forgers can make fake notes of this type easily? Perhaps, but now it is difficult because the genuine notes will look old as they are used notes. You can find that out by just looking at them. They will never be crisp and new.

This is the back of the new 500 rupee note. The main difference between this new one and the one below this one is that this new note below has the date of printing (2010) on it. Look at the bottom of the note, right in the centre.  

The one below is the older 500 rupee note. No date of printing there, but it is a genuine note so no need to worry. As mentioned above, such notes will have a used look and that is how you can be sure they are genuine.

Related Images: Indian Coins - Paise or Rupee Notes Images or check out all images filed under the label of Currency, which will have photos of currency notes from the U.K, U.S and other countries.

NOTE on 1st Jan 2015: The Indian government is soon discontinuing with the older notes. So anyone who has the older notes, the ones without the date of printing on them, please turn them over to your bank. Today they are legal tender, but they are being phased out so best return them.

Note on 13th of  November 2016:  On the 8th of November the Prime Minister announced that all ₹500 and ₹1000 notes will cease to be legal tender from midnight. New notes will be issued.

-->
-->

Ingredients of instant noodles and instant soups (Junk food)

If we eat junk, lets admit to ourselves its junk. These are some of the actual ingredients of processed food. These are close-up photographs of the labels on instant noodles and instant ready-made soups of different brands like Nestle and Knorr.

The dal atta noodles call themselves healthy but just look at the ingredients. The word "atta" is almost immediately followed by "wheat flour" which means maida or white refined flour. Followed by edible vegetable oil, salt and guar gum. The garnishing of dal is more for show. The mixed spices, sugar, salt are too much for the serving size. The rest of the ingredients are: wheat (read refined flour or maida) noodle poweder, tamarind powder, acidifying agent, curry leaves, asafoetida or hing, dehydrated vegetables (which hardly have any food value) and then there are flavour enhancers. Sounds quite unhealthy to me.

Here are the ingredients of these noodles: wheat flour or  maida, refined vegetable oil, salts and antioxidants.

This is the pack of instant pasta which seems a little better as it claims to be made of semolina (rawa) and wheat fibre.

This is an instant soup powder made of maltodextin, salt, monosodium gulatamate (which is not present in all instant noodles), sugar, chicken fat, vegetable fat, hydrolysed vegetable protein, flavourants, thickener, yeast extract, herbs, acidifiers, spices, flavour enhances and antioxidant. Seems like poison to me!  If you have to use this stuff add your own vegetable puree to it.

These are vegetable atta noodles purportedly made with whole wheat. As in the earlier case the word "atta" is immediately followed by the word "wheat flour" which means white refined flour or maida. This one has artificial colour as well.

This packet of hot and sour vegetable soup says it has no synthetic colours, but it will have colors, though of the natural variety. However even these are chemicals as it is all processed. Ingredients: Corn flour, salt, dehydrated vegetables, dried glucose syrup, sugar, flavour enhancer, soyabean sauce condiments, acidity regulator, yeast extract and dehydrated garlic and vitamins. The only think I like about it is vitamins because at least they are vitamins. Whether the actual food has any vitamins we don't know. Most likely not. Best to add your own finely chopped vegetables.

Related Pictures: Processed Juices in India or Instant Noodles Stock Photo or Processed foods in India or How to recognize a fake Tata Tetley tea bag or Muesli Nutrition Comparison and misleading labelling
Or for more try the label "Processed Food" or "Snacks" for cooked snacks.

KFC Garbage

India has overflowing garbage bins in the cities, and multinational companies which follow strict norms of dumping garbage in their home countries, add to the mess here. These photos contain images of trash dumped by the American multinational food outlet called KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) in the Deccan area in Pune. It shows that people behave badly when the regulations are poor. Civic behavior is certainly not inherent in anyone.

Related Images: Garbage on the roads in India or Litter and garbage on the rail tracks or People peeing and shitting on the streets in India or Garbage trucks or dumpers in India

Juices and Milk display at supermarkets in India

Here are two photographs of juices and milk on display at a supermarket in India. At the far end of the first shelf you will see photos of packaged buttermilk. On the last shelf at the bottom of the picture there are small glass bottles of cold coffee.

This second image shows milk tetrapacks from the Nestle company. On the far side there are some tetrapacks which contain "healthy"milk which the company claims is good for the heart. Mother Dairy tetrapacks are also seen in the picture. However Amul Milk (not in the picture) is the most popular milk.

For more photos of supermarkets in India check this post:  Fruit Vendors vs supermarkets  or Supermarket pictures - crockery, tomato puree, coconut milk, cheese and butter or Small Retailers in India
Other related photographs: Vegetable Markets in India or For Sale Signboards in India or Crowded market places in India or click on the label Retail

-->

-->

Supermarket pictures - crockery, tomato puree, coconut milk, cheese and butter

Indian supermarkets are not always super places where everything is laid out neatly for consumers to pick easily. They are often disorganised and it is difficult to find things one needs. There are a few supermarkets which are well organised but mostly they aren't. Used as Indians are to kirana shops (mom and pop stores), they adjust to the mess without complaints.

The first picture is of a crowded aisle where a trolley has been abandoned. Consumers themselves are not particular and add to the confusion.

Often the sales people block the aisles, with trolley or boxes. In this picture you can see tomato puree which is becoming popular in India these days with rising tomato prices. Coconut Milk is also popular but is not available throughout the year. Coconut is used extensively in the Southern parts of India and this packaged form is a boon for housewives. Other things like tamarind paste and ginger garlic paste is also used extensively.

This is the freezer section of the supermarket. Best to use this one for the web only as the image is not sharp.

The picture below is a close-up of one of the shelves of the freezer. The is the frozen or chiller section of the supermarket. In these shelves you can see  cheese slices, cheese spreads, tinned cheese, and butter.

The picture below is of a hypermarket in Thane city. You can see the vegetable and fruit section at the far end and in the foreground snacks (to the right of the picture) and chocolates (to the left). At the bottom right hand corner you can see a steel trolley.

The next two pictures are slightly blurred (sorry!). The first one is a close-up of the snacks section. What is called 'farsan' in India. Farsan is basically salted snacks or namkeen. Potato wafers fall in this category.

This last photograph is of an aisle in a supermarket. You can see some processed food packets to the left including tea and coffee. A woman customer is seen walking down the aisle.

For better images of supermarkets in India: Indian Supermarket Images Or Fruit Vendors vs supermarkets or Small Retailers in India or photos of Markets.
Or check out these posts: Juice and Milk display at supermarkets in India or Frozen fish at supermarket or For Sale Signboards in India or click on the label Retail.

-->
-->