Label Padega India: A Nationwide Anthem for Nutritional Awareness by Revant Himatsingka

‘Label Padega India,’ a national-level awareness anthem initiated by Revant Himatsingka, aims to spread a conscious wave of concern for exploring the nutritional content and other advisory information on packaged food products assiduously.  

The social media de-influencer Revant Himatsingka, popularly known to the netizens as FoodPharmer, had been working on the initiative for one year and finally launched the campaign on May 12th2024. Leaving a handsome earning job in the United States in 2023, Himatsingka became a FoodPharmer and engaged himself in creating ripples of awareness through Instagram. His contents have been basically based on highlighting the nutritional contents printed on the back of the packaged food products.

Revant’s first video as FoodPharmer noted the excessively high sugar content in Bournvita, which was supposedly a healthy drink for kids and was relatively not as healthy as claimed by the company. He remained undeterred even after receiving a legal notice from Bournvita and was forced to remove the video from his page. However, the video was already famous by then. He has never looked back ever since and has kept on challenging the deceptive marketing tactic and the genuineness of the contents of the packaged food products.

Later, many companies were forced to reduce or change the quantity of ingredients in processed food, all thanks to Revant’s viral videos. 

In one of his videos, FoodPharmer talks about the flaws in the older Education System, “Our Education System is obsessed with teaching us what is difficult rather than what is useful. It teaches us to work hard but doesn’t teach us how to make our work easy.” 

Out of many life skills that were not taught to Gen X in school, one of them was ‘the importance of reading the nutritional label on food packets.’ That’s the reason the majority of us do not pay attention to the list of ingredients and what harmful substances are usually added to the food that we buy from the market based on the advertising and marketing done by the food companies.

From 100% natural to no added sugar, from low-fat contents to healthy, the food brands have been focusing on marketing their products only to fool the consumers. On the contrary, the healthy portion, as claimed, is merely a decimal percentage containing mainly refined flour, sugar, and palm oil.

‘Label Padhega India’ initiative by Revant asks a few genuine questions like, “Do waqt ki roti k liye harr koi karta mehnat, par roti me hi khot ho toh kaun rahega sehmat?” and “Kya is Desh me kisano ki kami hai?”

“Light nahi hai situation, read the label, and you’ll know what’s going in your system.” he urges Indians to thoroughly read the nutritional facts and counter the fake promises made by food companies and combat their deceptive marketing practices. 

Starting the challenge to spread the word, the FoodPharmer challenged the Indian Rapper Raftaar (Kalathil Kuzhiyil Devadasan Dilin Nair), TV celebrity Archana Puran Singh, and Emcure Pharmaceuticals ED Namita Thapar to challenge three of their followers and friends further and so on. 

Many celebrities, sports personalities, entrepreneurs, social media influencers, etc., have joined the moment, amplifying its reach. Olympic Gold medalists, cricketers, actors, doctors, and 25+ India’s leading influencers have united for India’s health! 

The latest health anthem ‘Label Padhega India’ features big names and influencers like Dinesh Kartik, Terence Lewis, Ankit Baiyanpuria, Ravinder Singh, Ankur Warikoo, Masoom Minawala, Luke Coutinho, Mortal, Madan Gowri, Funcho, Tech Burner, Labour Law Advisor, Himeesh & Gunjan, Satvik Movement, Abhinav Bindra, Flying Beast, Sourav Joshi, Dr.Pal, Krish Gethin, Thugesh, Abhi & Niyu, Think School, and Nas Daily.  The initiative also features Rapper Raj Jaiswal, who was composed by D Rhymester.

A significant milestone towards cultivating a tradition of conscious knowledge of the actual weightage of ingredients to counter false claims by the food brand, the Label Padhega India initiative is a much-needed movement in today’s environment. Aiming to shift India from being the Diabetes Capital of the World to the Health Capital of the World, the initiative has garnered all the support from the followers across the world.