The PODI life journey
Our Story: Reclaiming Health and Flavor, One Pantry Shortcut at a Time
I’m Alak Nanda, and this is my mom, Vasavi. Together, we started PODI Life with one goal: to make home cooking easier, healthier, and full of joy—without sacrificing the bold flavors of our heritage.
But this story starts long before PODI Life was born.
From Healthcare to Home Kitchens: A Wake-Up Call
Before launching PODI Life, I worked as a healthcare management consultant for a decade, advising pharmaceutical companies and large hospitals, healthcare organizations. My role was to empower executives with data to make their businesses more profitable. But the deeper I dug, the more I saw how our healthcare system was not designed for true health optimization—it was designed to keep patients within a revenue model.
Growing up, both my parents were diabetic, and I saw firsthand how the industry viewed a diabetes patient not as a person to be healed but as a lifetime customer, getting them hooked with one drug after another. Prevention and lifestyle-based solutions took a backseat to pharmaceuticals, even though real, lasting health is built in the kitchen—not through pills, esp. with lifestyle diseases that so many of us suffer from.
That realization shifted everything for me.
Food is the Foundation of Health
Through my own journey—working with nutritionists, fitness coaches, and exploring functional medicine—I kept returning to a simple truth: the food we eat is the most central factor in our health. And yet, for most people, cooking at home feels like a chore. The modern food system has made convenience synonymous with ultra-processed, high-sodium, high-sugar options that do more harm than good.
But I grew up in a household where the pantry was our first medicine cabinet. Have a cold? There were spices for that. Digestion issues? We had foods to help with that. This wasn't just cultural—it was practical, effective, and rooted in centuries of wisdom.
Bridging Tradition and Modern Life
PODI Life was created to bring this ethos to today’s kitchens. Once I saw my friends adopt these shortcuts as their known, I realized these weren’t just my family’s best-kept secret—they were the shortcuts to better home cooking that everyone needed.
Today, we craft better-for-you pantry shortcuts that make it easy to cook nourishing, vibrant meals in minutes. Our PODIs—South Indian spice blends that function like dry sauces—are made with high-quality lentils, spices, and herbs, designed to be:
✔️ Low-sodium, low-sugar, and preservative-free
✔️ Easy to use and adapt—just sprinkle/mix/rub for instant flavor, no cooking needed
✔️ Versatile and nutrient-dense—supporting digestion, immunity, and gut health
✔️ Deeply flavorful—because taste is what drives habit change
We believe food should be both delicious and healing—not an either/or choice. By combining the bold flavors of our South Indian heritage with modern nutrition principles, we make it easier for busy people to cook more at home, embrace whole foods, and take charge of their health in a way that feels effortless.
A Movement for Flavorful, Functional Eating
This is bigger than just a product— we are challenging the idea that healthy eating is bland, difficult, or time-consuming. We want to empower and reclaim home cooking as an act of self-care, cultural connection, and joy.
With every jar of PODI, every One Pot Meal, we are not just sharing flavors—we’re sharing a philosophy: that food is meant to nourish, energize, and bring people together. That healing starts in our own kitchens. And that cooking at home can be one of the most powerful, pleasurable acts of self-love.
We invite you to join us in making this shift. Let’s bring back real food, real flavor, and real well-being—one meal at a time.
How our biz started!
Very unexpectedly, PODI life was created during the great COVID19 lockdown in India!
After 500+ orders and love from all corners of India, we knew we were onto something. India is an extremely diverse country, and as the renowned restaurant critic Tejal Rao says "Indian cuisine is defined by its multiplicity. It is many cuisines in one. Each resisting generalization and abridgement."
We were/are honored to bring South India's rich and diverse culinary heritage, to the rest of the world. Just like us, our little labor of love, has its origins in India, and grew in the US. A true immigrant journey.
The way forward...
We launched our business in Atlanta, GA in 2021. We try to weave in grassroots impact via the business in small ways. For a fledgling company that is funneling all its money into future growth, having the opportunity to be CARAVAN HERDERS means a lot to us. Thank you for your patronage!
