I buy my fruits and vegetables, most mornings, from one of my favourite sabzi-wallahs who spreads his wares at the end of our street, and to me it is sheer delight to pick and choose from the multi-coloured fresh array while engaging in some this and that with the vendor or many women who quickly multiply around the delectable spread. This is the only time that I get to hob-nob with them, though we never exchange anything except what in our opinion is good and what should be avoided from piles in front of us. I remember an elderly gentleman who once gently chided me for being 'greedy' and even as I defended my humongous purchase as a weekly splurge, he advised me to come everyday and purchase only what I needed for the day. Not possible—even though I much enjoy this exercise, it is not possible to take a leisurely stroll everyday, stopping every now and then to chit-chat while I make my purchase for the day, and in any case what good is the fridge then?

To think how much of a support the refrigerator is to the working housewife in urban India is to understand the dynamics of modern living. In other parts of the world consumers have moved their food consumption out of refrigerators and gone organic, local, seasonal and fresh, while we in India have been moving more and more into the consumerist spiral of processed and packaged food.

Even though families are nuclear, their food needs are varied, and educated/ aware housewives, rushed for time, try to pack their refrigerators from what the market and the vendors offer them, to take care of the family's nutritional needs. I have seen many homes keep more than one fridge to accommodate all that one needs to keep at hand. The processed and packaged food industry has added to the choices on the market shelves. The younger generation's snacking habits also need to be catered to, while balancing the negatives with positives from the traditional Indian menus. The much travelled Indian middle class with offspring all over the planet, is quite at home with global choices and metropolitan cities are offering varied as well as eclectic menus to choose from.

The refrigerator plays a great role in lessening kitchen-based dependence and in helping the housewife to plan her menus and shop ahead to check-mate emergencies.

Our refrigerator test story with much additional information is the result of several months of intensive work by our team, who work tirelessly to keep the manufacturers and the market on their toes. We test, we read and analyse labels, we create surveys, we scan the markets and their wares and issue alerts to consumers on hidden dangers in additives, about markets flouting regulations and standards, and defrauding consumers by pinching weights and measures, or by not meeting their ad claims. We also generally alert consumers about hundreds of customary tricks of the sellers markets.

Every additional convenience however puts its own demands on the household budgets, on energy consumption, on the hygiene and health of family members. We keep track of everything and provide our readers with up to date, all round information on products and services.

Last month we brought you a comprehensive story on nuts in the gifting Divali season. This month we bring you our report on breakfast musts, namely eggs and bread. These two essentials on middle class breakfast tables spell a lot of trouble as our reports show, but mercifully now consumers have some choice in both these items. There are fresh baked wholewheat or multigrain breads as also organic or farm eggs, or at least the labels say so. We fervently hope these provide healthier options, till we test those and bring you further updates. In any case we endorse the Indian options of stuffed paranthas, idli-dosas, dalia or poha anytime

We hope you will enjoy reading it all, as much as we did working on it.

We hope the fervour of Deepavali has energised you and your families to take on the rigours of advancing winter with health and good cheer.