Diwali mithai shopping guide: Know which sweets to buy, when to shop, how to store them and avoid food waste | Hindustan Times

Exercise intentional Diwali mithai shopping mindset to avoid food waste. (Picture credit: AI generated) Soan papdi is not the only Diwali mithai you can gift! Buy dry sweets a few days ahead, but leave fresh milk-based varieties until just before Diwali.The ‘festival of light’, Diwali, is synonymous with gifting sweets. Sweet hampers are common around this time, and they are prepared for friends and family as auspicious symbols of prosperity and good fortune. The Indian sweet landscape has a wide variety of options, beyond the familiar favourites.

But a generic sweet box won't cut it if you are trying to be mindful about your choices. If you are planning to shop for sweets, you need to be careful about which ones you choose, as different sweets have different storage needs and shelf lives.

In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Umesh Kumar Agarwal, director, Haldiram Marketing Pvt. Ltd. shared practical tips on choosing sweets – when to buy different varieties, which types to gift for different occasions and, most importantly, how to avoid food waste.

Your timing depends on the type of mithai you choose.

“Go by milk content. The more milk a sweet has, the later you buy it,” Umesh advised.

He said soan papdi, besan ladoo, kaju katli and most dry-fruit sweets can be bought four to five days ahead, provided their labelled shelf life and storage instructions allow it. Sealed namkeen packs can be purchased even earlier.

For Khoya sweets, such as barfi and peda, Umesh recommended shopping closer to Diwali. Fresh milk-based sweets need more careful timing.

“Anything fresh and milky, say rasgulla, rasmalai, sandesh, kalakand or milk cake, should come home the day before Diwali or that very morning.”

Instead of buying everything in one go, divide your purchases to help keep sweets fresh. Umesh also reminded buyers to check the best-before date and storage instructions on each pack.

Some sweet boxes are not opened right away, particularly those gifted at offices or sent to friends over long distances. Some hampers may remain unopened for days after Diwali.

For such situations, Umesh recommended kaju katli, soan papdi, besan laddoo, certain dry-fruit barfis, and assorted dry fruits, as these usually hold up well. Sealed namkeen is another option. However, it is important to check the label, as shelf life varies.

He cautioned against gifting rasgulla, rasmalai and other syrupy or fresh milk sweets if the recipient cannot refrigerate them soon after delivery.

Gifting sweets at Diwali is a loving gesture, but boxes can pile up and end up going to waste. This is why you need to plan your purchases and avoid buying too much.

“Plan a little, and the festival feels less frantic, and far less ends up in the bin,” he added.

People also carry sweets over long distances when travelling home to celebrate Diwali. In this case, Umesh advised, "If the travel involves covering a long distance, then dry sweets such as laddoos or dry fruits should be preferred over milk-based sweets or sweets soaked in syrup, since the former can be easily carried and even last longer.”

The precautions you need to take also depend on whether you are carrying the sweets yourself or sending them through a courier.

Adrija Dey’s proclivity for observation fuels her storytelling instinct. As a lifestyle journalist, she crafts compelling, relatable narratives across diverse touchpoints of the human experience, including wellness, mental health, relationships, interior design, home decor, food, travel, and fashion that gently nudge readers toward living a little better. For her, stories exist in flesh and bones, carried by human vessels and shaped through everyday endeavours. It is the small stories we live and share that make us human. After all, humans and their lores are the most natural and raw repositories of stories, and uncovering them, for her, is akin to peeling an orange under a winter afternoon sun. Always up for a chat, she believes the best stories come from unfiltered yapping, where "too much information" is kind of the point. A graduate of Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, and an alumna of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, Adrija spends her idle hours cocooned with herbal tea and a gripping thriller, scribbling inner monologues she loosely calls poetic pieces, often with her succulents in attendance. On lazier days, she can be found binge-watching, for the nth time, one from her comfort-show holy trinity: The Office (US), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, or Modern Family. Dancing by herself to her peppy playlists, however, is an everyday ritual she swears by religiously.Read More