OUR STORY
Heldi began with the way my nani said healthy.
Ask my nani if the food was healthy and she would say it was heldi. She meant the meals she had always made us: warm, familiar, cooked with care. That was simply how she said it, and the word stuck with me. When it came time to name this, I borrowed hers. Healthy, the way my nani says it.
That was the word I kept.
MIHIR
I loved our dinner. I was still 10g short.
I'm Mihir. I grew up in a vegetarian house on dal, sabzi, raita and chai. When training became a big part of my life, I started paying attention to protein. That dinner came to 20g. I was aiming for 30g, and I did not want to give up the food I loved.
For a while, I gave it up anyway. I swapped Mama's dal and sabzi for protein shakes and bars. I missed the food more than I expected, and I missed something else more. Mama still cooked for all of us every evening, the way she always had, because cooking is how she looks after us. I had stopped eating it, and I could feel the distance that put between us.
So I set myself one stubborn requirement: eat the same dinner with my family, without adding another shake or making a separate plate. Heldi came from that: one spoonful, ten grams of protein, stirred into the dishes already being passed round.
The same food, just a little Heldier.
THE KITCHEN TRIALS
Six powders. One kitchen. A few ruined dinners.
I bought six different protein powders and carried them into my mother's kitchen. She cooked the dal and kadhi. I added the powder. Then we sat down and ate whatever I had done to dinner. Some of those trials we would rather forget.
Whey protein isolate was the only one that mixed through without grit or aftertaste. The dal still tasted like my mother's dal. That gave us one useful rule: if Mama could taste the difference, it failed.
One pot of kadhi gave its life for this. We remember it fondly.
See what's in the pouch now →
THE TASTE PANEL
One Heldi meal. Two cleared plates.
- Mama the best cook I know
- Papa a dal loyalist
- Verdict thumbs-up, twice
Mama and Papa had no interest in shakes. They did have very clear opinions about dinner. In our house, a new idea is usually discussed from every side. This one got two cleared plates and no request to change the recipe. That was the verdict I needed.
I want as many long walks with my mama and papa as I can get. They are the family I had in mind while making Heldi, along with every vegetarian parent I know who finds it hard to get enough protein from the food on their plate.
Whenever I talk to friends, it comes up. We have known for years that our parents should keep moving, and plenty of them do. The conversation about protein is much newer: the research on how much older adults should eat keeps pointing higher, and most of our parents grew up never hearing it.
The recipes led. Heldi had to fit.
THE FAMILY TABLE
Made for the food we share.
To reach our dinner table, a protein powder had to work for all of us. The base is whey, the part of milk that has always been there, stirred into the recipes we already make.
Dal, sabzi and raita already brought our family to the table. Heldi has one small job: add protein in a form that works for every generation at the table.
WHAT'S NEXT
Two pouches, one launch day.
Khana and Chai went through the same kitchen trials, with Mama and Papa as the taste panel. Their standards have not moved. Both pouches launch together.
The family table gets the final say.
Heldi started in our kitchen. Every decision still comes back there.
The first 100 on the list get a free sample pair, and we pay the postage. Everyone on the list gets 15% off their first order.