India's health kick expands shelves for nutraceuticals

India's health kick expands shelves for nutraceuticals: " Since the last couple of months, Mohan Mehta's shopping pattern has changed. The 48-year-old banking professional makes it a point to browse through the health supplements
section of a retail mall in Kandivli in Mumbai, which he visits once a week.

Without fail, Mehta scans through the shelves displaying products such as multivitamin tablets, memory tonics, calcium tablets, and Chyawanprash. Due to this, his weekly shopping budget has swelled to about Rs 1,000, from Rs 880 earlier, never mind the slowdown.

Mehta and his family of seven --his wife, three daughters, and his aged parents -- have been bitten by the fitness bug, and feel a little extra in the nutrition department is a necessity.

'We may not get all the necessary nutrients from our daily diet alone. And so, we need additional nutrition through vitamin tablets and health drinks,' he says. So the Mehta family spends on various probiotic drinks, vitamins, calcium tablets, protein biscuits, etc. Like the Mehtas, several other families are waking up to the health kick. "