Artisan Spotlight: Deepa Thomas
I was beyond delighted when Deepa Thomas was willing to connect with me about a feature on my website. Unbeknownst to her, she played an essential role in my family’s 2019 health journey. We were fed up with the lack of flavor in our nutritional plans (you cannot take the Indian out of us!!) and my sis, being the gifted researcher she is, happened upon a “Slow Carb-New Indian” cookbook called Deepa’s Secrets. Fast forward to cooking many recipes (pictures below), reaping the nutritional + palate benefits, and gifting the cookbook (it’s a steal at less than $20)…I’m a big fan and excited to share my interview!
Deepa is a journalist, designer, entrepreneur, mother, grandmother, home chef, and 2018 James Beard Award cookbook winner. To say she is a woman of many talents is an understatement! She has a unique way with words and ingredients, and her wisdom has elevated my life. A keen observer, who creates and seizes experiences has resulted in a lifetime of impressive achievements; the cookbook and how she transformed her family’s health are proof amongst a litany of possible examples.
What I love about Deepa’s Secrets is her story telling, spot-on flavor profiles, healthy yet delectable approach to Indian food, beautiful food photography, nutritional explanations of ingredients, and the cherry on top is that 100% of the royalties go to FoodCorps, a nonprofit teaching kids about healthy food in schools. If you care about blood sugar, gut health, the mind-body connection, AND eating tasty South Indian food, this is the cookbook for you! Kerala is already high on my travel wish list and every time I open this book, I yearn to visit…who’s coming??
Enjoy getting to know Deepa and I can’t wait to read your comments!
What was your reaction to your husband no longer needing insulin, made possible primarily by dietary changes?
Disbelief! For my husband Thampy, a Type 2 diabetic, who had taken two insulin shots a day for 10 years, to find his blood sugar was normal after just five days of our experiment in eliminating, refined, processed foods, especially high carb ingredients like rice and bread, was unbelievable. The sustained benefits continue –(blood-sugar control and weight loss are inextricably connected).
What have you learnt about Indian food and glycemic index?
India has been the crucible of Ayurvedic principles of food as medicine and yet today it is the diabetic capital of the world! What changed? Ingredients that were close to the earth, the original farm to table culture adopted the principles of food shelf life from the West: refining and processing food ingredients like grains and oils and falling victim to fast foods. It pays to go back to the Ayurvedic proverb:
”When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. When diet is correct, medicine is of no need.”
I would add that it matters if you commit to exercise every day and to checking the hygiene of ones own thoughts. The body is unbreakably connected to our thoughts and actions.
Any advice or tips for someone unfamiliar with cooking Indian cuisine?
What I tell folks who like Indian flavors but are unfamiliar, even afraid of the ingredients in Indian cuisine, is to use these ingredients in their everyday cooking, to get familiar with the taste and what it does to their recipe. Confidence and the willingness to experiment go a long way!
What was your favorite part of creating a cookbook?
A process of 5 years, of learning and sharing was exhilarating. The best part was proving through cooking, plating my recipes and the photography that was done in my kitchen in natural light, that we eat with our eyes first. Make it look good before it tastes good!
Least favorite?
Trying to find and agent or a publisher for a first time author was a nightmare! Then I met Kathryn Stockett, the author of the blockbuster The Help, at a writer’s festival and she told me not to give up because she had 59 rejections before finding an agent!
What did winning a James Beard Foundation Book Award (Health & Special Diets) mean to you?
Sitting at a table at the James Beard Awards, the Oscars of the food world, was a fantasy! Celebrity chefs like Jeremiah Tower, Anthony Bourdain in the audience made me feel like Alice in Wonderland! So much so that when my name was called, I remained seated as I thought they were just announcing the nominees! The JB is a huge honor and very humbling.
Tell us about FoodCorps (the charity that receives the proceeds from the cookbook)?
FoodCorps is a nonprofit that connects school going kids across the US to healthy food habits: https://foodcorps.org/
Curt Ellis their founding CEO is a friend (he wrote the Foreword to my book). Check out:
Any advice for those struggling with diabetes/managing glycemic index?
Try to reset ones belief system from feeling like a victim to hereditary factors to being in charge of what one has absolute control over, what we eat! There is no “cure” but there is freedom from the debilitating symptoms of this disease.
What are other health success stories?
We discovered that with blood sugar stabilized and appropriate weight loss, other ailments related to inflammation, including arthritis, psoriasis and auto immune symptoms are helped immensely.
What is your favorite spice?
Deepa’s Secret Spice blend (page 24). A pinch makes your next omelet sing and a few spoons rounds out your next roast! But really, I have not met a spice I didn’t like!
Deepa sent me the blend pictured here and wowee do I love it. Whenever I cook with it, my family is blown away! That’s the beauty of a good spice blend…the cooks get all the credit when really, it’s the harmony of spices that make dishes come together effortlessly!!
Where can we find you on the world wide web?
https://www.deepassecrets.com/
@deepa_secrets on Instagram
Photos by Shilpa Noronha
