Dr. Chef Girija is a culinary consultant, wellness practitioner, and educator whose work focuses on making healthy food accessible, practical, and rooted in Indian traditions. Despite the growing awareness around health, truly healthy food is often perceived as luxury, something that is time-consuming, expensive, and difficult to sustain. Dr. Chef Girija challenges this assumption. Her work is built on a simple yet powerful idea that eating healthy does not have to be luxurious. It can begin with the spices, herbs, and traditional rices and rice flakes already present in one's kitchen.To name few traditional rice and rice flakes like mapala samba to improve sperm count,poongar for lactating mothers,katu yanum rice for diabetes, forbidden rice to boost imune and strength etc .
She is a Limca Book of Records holder for preparing 150 flameless dishes in 87 minutes “ From Briyani to Basundi” demonstrated Indian food to cook without gas or flames.This even had a large gathering at Chennai Pachiyapass college auditorium on 28/8/2011 Dr chef Girija has also been part of crew members a Guinness World Records team under Padma Shri Chef Damu 24 and ½ cooking marathon and received guiness certificate . This event was held at Hotel Savera on 22/12/2010 .As an author, speaker, and mentor, she has reached more than 20,000 people through 100 lectures and workshops across colleges, corporates, and schools, promoting fireless recipies and Indian spices in Indian food systems and their healing potential. Through modifying food habits alone, she has worked with and supported the healing journeys of over 2,000 people.
Post completion of her Hotel Management studies, Dr. Chef Girija began her career at the prestigious Park Sheraton Hotel and towers where she was involved in large-scale wedding banquets. She then went on to work with Sodexo Pass as a catering manager. In this role, her responsibilities expanded beyond the kitchen, where she managed teams, planned large operations, ensured quality control, and balanced nutrition with scale and efficiency.
With years of industry experience behind her, she took an entrepreneurial leap by founding her own venture, Prompt Facility Management. The company offered a wide range of services including manpower consultancy, housekeeping contracts, catering services to corporate and facility support solutions. Under her leadership, the organization grew steadily and operated successfully until 2015.
However, it was her personal health experience that became the true turning point of her life. During her pregnancy, she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and was strictly advised to avoid foods high in salt ,and sugar. This restriction forced her to re-evaluate her long-standing relationship with food. Food was about indulgence and celebration, but now it became a matter of survival, balance, and healing. She began to see food through a new lens, not as sustenance but as medicine. She observed how carefully chosen ingredients could stabilize the body, restore energy, and support well-being. This ignited a shift in her philosophy. Food, according to her, had the power to heal.
One of the biggest challenges, Dr. Chef Girija explains, lies in the everyday decisions around ingredients. Cutting vegetables and selecting the right tender vegetables becomes a careful, deliberate process. Especially in flameless cooking, every vegetable and ingredient must be chosen with precision, because even a small mistake in selection can significantly affect the food’s quality, balance, and therapeutic value.
Dr. Chef Girija’s work stands apart for its radical practicality and inclusiveness. Her recipes are designed to be replicated anywhere: without fire, , or elaborate tools. Through her innovation in flameless cooking, she creates methods that work even under strict limitations. Remarkably, these recipes are simple and safe enough for children to prepare independently, making healthy food accessible to all ages and situations.
Her work today extends geographies far beyond Tamil Nadu. She has promoted Indian food in international forums in countries like Dubai and Mauritius. Through her YouTube channel and Instagram, her philosophy of healing food reaches audiences across the country and beyond.
She has expanded her work by designing recipes that fit seamlessly into modern, time-constrained lifestyles. Her methods cater especially to those who cannot devote long hours to cooking, without compromising on health or tradition. She actively involves students in creating these recipes alongside her, encouraging them to rediscover and use Indian foods, spices, and herbs in simple, healthy ways.
Her competitors could be other culinary artists, but the unique nature of her work in promoting flameless and Indian cooking, using spices and forgotten traditional rice flakes as means of healing, makes her stand out from the rest.
Dr. Chef Girija has contributed to the world and field of culinary through her works:
Dr. Chef Girija now successfully runs Syamantac Villa at Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu, where she conducts structured healing programs that combine food-based intervention with sensory therapies. The botique resort is a nine-bedroom villa where individuals from different parts of the country stay for short, focused holiday and healing sessions.
One component of her work is color therapy, which is based on the concept of the five panchabhutas or the five elements, wherein each element is associated with a specific color. According to this approach, imbalance in these elements reflects in physical discomfort. Colored foods are used as part of the diet plan to support balance. The food is prepared using natural ingredients, and the focus remains on consistency and suitability for the individual.
She also incorporates sound healing, which is a chakra-based practice. She uses specific sound frequencies that are said to be associated with different chakras. Sessions are designed to expose participants to these vibrations with the objective to promote relaxation and support mental and physical regulation by aligning the chakras and balancing them using related chakaras colour with food . Food is the central part of the healing process. Based on the individual's body type and condition, she designs simple, easily digestible meals using spices and herbs. These plants are intended to support people experiencing issues such as stomach pain, headache, digestion-related discomfort, and kidney-related concerns. She focuses on the choice of ingredients, preparation method, and the way the food is taken rather than portion size or restriction. People from across the country visit the resort to participate in these programs as they have proven to be successful. Most of her publicity comes from word of mouth
Dr. Chef Girija was part of the core crew that contributed to a Guinness World Records achievement under Chef Dhamu during his longest cooking marathon. It was his encouragement and belief in her approach to cooking that inspired her to attempt and eventually accomplish her own Limca Book of Records milestone in flameless cooking.
On 28 August 2011, at Pachaiyappa's College, she achieved a remarkable world record by preparing 150 distinct dishes in just 87 minutes without using fire, gas. What made this achievement extraordinary was not just the speed or the scale, but the idea behind it. Every dish, from staples like biryani to desserts such as basundi, was prepared entirely through flameless techniques. Using a wide range of Indian spices, herbs, vegetables, and natural ingredients, she demonstrated that flavour and nutrition does not necessarily depend on heat. This record was not an overnight success. She began preparing for this ambitious attempt on 25 December 2010. Over the next eight months, she immersed herself in intense experimentation. The event itself was designed as a collective learning experience rather than a solo performance. Students from various colleges observed, specialising in naturopathy, were invited to participate, prepare recipes, and observe her techniques firsthand. By involving students, she reinforced her belief that knowledge must be shared and that traditional Indian food systems could empower the next generation of wellness practitioners. Following the successful completion of her record, the then Mayor of Chennai, Mr. Saidai Duraisamy, released her book, Rajavirundu, Sappidalam vanga, at the same venue.
Dr. Chef Girija discusses how food can serve as a link between traditional knowledge, everyday healing, and nutrition in her book Rajavirendu Saappidalam Vaanga. The book gives readers a better knowledge of the long-standing connections between Indian food systems and health and preventive care. She describes the natural qualities of Indian herbs and spices and how they affect the body in a large section of the book. She views spices as useful components that promote digestion, immunity, and general balance rather than just as flavor enhancers.
Additionally, she incorporates useful dietary advice to enhance everyday lifestyle decisions. She explains how commonplace foods like groundnuts and coconut can help with dental care, citing their inherent qualities that, when used carefully, promote oral health. Myrobalan and its advantageous qualities are another significant topic covered in the book. She describes its conventional application and how it can be carefully added to a regimen that emphasizes wellbeing.
Dr. Chef Girija views education as essential to sustaining traditional food practices and ensuring that health-focused cooking methods reach a wider audience. With this long-term goal, she has plans to establish her own academy, where her accumulated knowledge on flameless cooking, therapeutic food, and Indian ingredients can be formally taught and documented. With over 100+ lectures at different institutes, she shares her knowledge with the next generation. She has reached more than 20,000 people in this way.
At present, her mentoring work takes place through direct engagement with institutions. She regularly visits colleges to conduct lectures and hands-on workshops focused on healthy eating practices. These sessions cover practical topics such as ingredient selection, basic nutrition, and the everyday use of Indian spices and herbs. Rather than promoting complex diets, she emphasizes simple, culturally rooted food habits that can be realistically adopted by students and working professionals.
In corporate settings, she conducts awareness sessions addressing lifestyle-related health concerns that arise from long working hours, stress, and irregular eating patterns. Here, her focus is on making food choices manageable within professional routines, while explaining the functional benefits of commonly available Indian ingredients. These workshops are designed to be instructional rather than prescriptive.
She also occasionally visits schools, where her engagement is adapted for younger audiences. In these settings, she introduces children to basic food awareness, safe preparation methods, and the idea that food influences both physical health and mental focus. Through all these interactions, she consistently promotes Indian food traditions and communicates the idea that food has healing capabilities when understood and used correctly.
Dr. Chef Girija has won several awards for her works including,
| Designation | Organization | From | Motto |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founder | Syamantac Villa | 2018 | Food healing done while guests are connected with nature. |
| Member | SICA- South Indian Chef Association | 2020 | Uniting culinary professionals to uphold excellence, integrity, and innovation in hospitality. |