Chef Ashutosh Awasthi

For twenty-four years, Chef Ashutosh Awasthi cooked for some of the most exacting palates in the world — ITC Maratha, Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels, Norwegian Cruise Lines, P&O Cruises. As an executive chef, his life was the theatre of gourmet indulgence: tasting spoons, plating tweezers, thirty-course menus. And somewhere in the blur of service and creativity, his own health quietly slipped away. It was when he decided to go from “fat to fit,” transforming his body on running tracks and in gyms, that the chef rediscovered what food was really meant to do: nourish.

That personal turnaround became the seed for Sheer MADness Nutrition, a brand whose very name (and its tagline, “The Junoon to stay fit”) captures the obsession he brings to clean eating. Founded in 2021, Sheer MADness refuses to compromise on a single principle: no chemicals means no chemicals. No preservatives. No emulsifiers. No artificial colours or flavourings. Just simple, familiar ingredients — almonds, flaxseed, turmeric, millet, dates — blended, sieved, vacuum-packed, and sent out the door.

His flagship product is a plant protein powder he calls India’s “Desi Protein” — a reimagining of the old grandmother’s recipes of doodh badam and doodh haldi, supercharged with flaxseed’s omega-3s and almonds’ vitamin E. It is aimed at the Indian who wants muscle, energy, and glowing skin without the alphabet soup of INS codes on the label. Alongside it sit millet bars, energy bars, desi protein bars, and clean health drinks for children and adults alike.

Awasthi is also the author of three books — including Great Health Comes from Exercise & Nutrition and 101 Simple Homemade Smoothies for Weight Loss — and a marathon runner who genuinely believes exercise and clean nutrition are two sides of the same coin. His philosophy, repeated like a mantra across his blog, is that “Rome was not built in a day”; discipline and consistency are everything. Sheer MADness is less a product line than a quiet rebellion: against packaged food that calls itself healthy while hiding additives in small print, and in favour of food that a grandmother would recognise — and approve of.