Barkha was raised a vegetarian in India. Her entire family is vegetarian, so that was just the way she ate. Her mother bought vegetables from the vegetable stand down the street every day. There was no menu planning – they ate what was available and fresh. They bought wheat from the store and brought it to the local grinder to get it ground – right in front of them. Our flour had no preservatives or dough conditioners in it.

However, when Barkha decided to get a degree in Hotel Management, she started eating just about everything. At that point in her life, she couldn’t tell the difference between pork and lamb meat. She had to learn everything – but even so, when they cooked meat in India, it remained only in the dishes with meat. There was never any lard in beans, bacon in salads, and gelatin was not an animal product.

After Barkha moved to the United States in her early twenties, she was exposed to more and more animal products and processed foods in her everyday life. She remembers being appalled by dehydrated scalloped potatoes in the grocery store once. How hard is it to slice a potato? But things started going downhill overtime. She still tried to make things from scratch, but it was easy to buy boxes to make cakes and cookies, and buy and canned and frozen everything.

After being diagnosed with arthritis, she stepped back and examined the one difference between my lifestyle and of all of my family – none of whom had any arthritis. It was animal products. Thus began my return, first to vegetarianism, then to veganism.

Besides the Vegan42 site, she devotes her time to writing software, cooking and entertaining, and enjoying my beautiful family in sunny South Florida.