Friday, January 18, 2019

NUTRITION SPECIAL ....‘One masala dosa packs half your daily calorie needs’


‘One masala dosa packs half your daily calorie needs’

The all-time favourite masala dosa may be deceiving you with its thin, golden look and humble potato filling. The aroma of melting butter and ‘kemp chutney’ (red chilli chutney)would make you crave for one, but what probably only a few would know is that a single masala dosa provides almost half the calories a healthy human being requires in a day.
A four-continent, five-nation study has quantified the calorific content of masala dosas sold in Benglauru at 1,023 kcal, while the daily requirement of a human being stands at around 2,200 kcal. The findings were recently published in the British Medical Journal.
Led by Prof Rebecca Kuriyan, head of Nutrition and Lifestyle Clinic at St John’s Medical College Hospital and Professor at St John’s Research Institute, the study,conducted in late 2017, measured the calorific content of frequently ordered meals from sit-down and fast-food restaurants from five countries — India, Brazil, China, Finland and Ghana.
Restaurants in these countries usually do not provide nutritional information of the food they serve. Prof Rebecca said the recommended calorific content of a single meal should be less than 600 kcal since “any healthy and active human being should be consuming not more than 2,200 kcal a day.”
“This study showed over 94% of meals served at full service restaurants and 74% at fastfood restaurants contained over 600 kcal each,” said Prof Rebecca. The research findings have been shared with the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI), urging the government to mandate restaurants mention calorific value of the food items sold.
Sunitha.Rao@timesgroup.com
TOI23DEC18


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