SOUTH BEACH TO SWADESHI THALI
Dieticians
are now promoting the Indian diet, which combines Ayurveda and home-spun wisdom
Weighing 135
kg, Jackky Bhagnani became a compulsive fad dieter. “I lost five kilos on the
General Motors diet, but put it back on the week after,” the actor, 27,
recalls. What brought his weight down to 74 kg were small, frequent meals and a
balanced diet of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. “The Indian staple,” he
says.
From South Beach to Atkins, Caveman to Blood Type, Indians have tried every western fad diet with little luck. Now Indian nutritionists are increasingly counselling clients like Bhagnani to go on the ‘Indian diet’. This diet, which is a combination of traditional practices like Ayurveda and home-spun knowledge, has a holistic, long-term approach to weight loss. It emphasizes the importance of small, intermittent meals and exercise. The meal plans, inspired by traditions like thali dining, borrow from India’s ancestral wisdom.
Originating in the west and based on sketchy scientific data, fad diets offer quick-fix solutions to weight loss, either by reducing or eliminating food groups (like carbs in the Atkins Diet), encouraging consumption of large quantities of one type of food (Cabbage Soup or Grapefruit Diet) or no food at all (The 5:2 or Fast Diet, currently trending, where you eat five days and fast for two). Indian dieticians are emphatic about how unhealthy they all are. “Crash dieting slows your metabolism to conserve energy so you often put on weight,” Dr Sarita Davare, Mumbai nutritionist and Ayurvedic doctor explains. Rujuta Divekar, dietician, urges people not to shun food groups based on fads, recalling how “poisons” of the late ’90s were fats like ghee, homemade butter, peanuts and groundnut oil; by mid-2000, carbs like rice, rotis, etc were out. “Modern nutrition science reduces food to the sum total of its nutrients. But food is not a number counted in calories,” she says.
Divekar’s diet plan emphasises the importance of prana (Sanskrit for “life force”), and chooses foods that are fresh, seasonal and local over calorie count. Dr Davare and Pooja Makhija, a dietician from Mumbai, both design meals inspired by the nutritionally-balanced Indian thali. A seasonal, locally-grown vegetable dish, leafy vegetables, fresh salad or kachumber, whole legumes or pulses, dal, cereal (rice or wholewheat roti), a small bowl of yoghurt or glass of buttermilk, a wedge of lemon and a dollop of pickle to stimulate the appetite. There can even be a piece of fish or few pieces of chicken or meat for non-vegetarians. Though the science of counting calories was unknown then, each katori is sized to contain just the right amount of food. Makhija compares the thali to the ‘Eatwell plate’ that replaced the food pyramid in the UK. “Many Indians eat in this style, but dieticians balance the newly-introduced excesses,” says Makhija of the gur-laden dal, rotis dripping with ghee and sweets like gulab jamun that have found their way to the plate.
Spices like coriander seeds, cumin, ginger and curry leaves also score a starring role in the Indian diet. “Ayurveda believes that there are six kinds of tastes — sweet, sour, salty, pungent bitter, astringent — that need to be addressed to satisfy the body,” says Dr Davare, whose book ‘The Live Well Diet’ has recipes designed on these principles by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor. Divekar, who has a new DVD titled ‘Indian Food Wisdom and The Art of Eating Right’ out, champions taboo items like ghee as well as coconuts and peanuts, all ‘super foods of the East’. Even the small, two-hourly meal plan the dieticians all promote is inspired by the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the oldest text describing this form of yoga. “The text says listen to your hunger. The stomach secretes acids every few hours, signalling the brain that it’s time to eat,” Divekar explains.
The Indian diet goal is not numberled — Divekar never asks clients to step on a weighing scale — because the aim is a healthier lifestyle. But this has not discouraged clients — Dr Davare, who began with 10 patients two decades ago, puts the figure at a lakh today and Makhija recorded an almost 60 per cent increase in patients over 11 years. The waiting list to consult with any of them can extend up to three months.
The figures indicate how successful the Indian diet has been, and like yoga, its promoters believe it has international potential. Amadea Morningstar, US-based dietician who has co-authored ‘The Ayurvedic Cookbook’, says the Indian thali is already being served in New York, Santa Fe and other parts of the globe. “It includes a generous amount of nutrients lacking in many Western diets — particularly fibre and vitamins. Many Westerners would love this meal,” she says. But just the fact that Indians are appreciating it is a blessing, says Davare. “We’re getting back to our roots and that’s good.”
From South Beach to Atkins, Caveman to Blood Type, Indians have tried every western fad diet with little luck. Now Indian nutritionists are increasingly counselling clients like Bhagnani to go on the ‘Indian diet’. This diet, which is a combination of traditional practices like Ayurveda and home-spun knowledge, has a holistic, long-term approach to weight loss. It emphasizes the importance of small, intermittent meals and exercise. The meal plans, inspired by traditions like thali dining, borrow from India’s ancestral wisdom.
Originating in the west and based on sketchy scientific data, fad diets offer quick-fix solutions to weight loss, either by reducing or eliminating food groups (like carbs in the Atkins Diet), encouraging consumption of large quantities of one type of food (Cabbage Soup or Grapefruit Diet) or no food at all (The 5:2 or Fast Diet, currently trending, where you eat five days and fast for two). Indian dieticians are emphatic about how unhealthy they all are. “Crash dieting slows your metabolism to conserve energy so you often put on weight,” Dr Sarita Davare, Mumbai nutritionist and Ayurvedic doctor explains. Rujuta Divekar, dietician, urges people not to shun food groups based on fads, recalling how “poisons” of the late ’90s were fats like ghee, homemade butter, peanuts and groundnut oil; by mid-2000, carbs like rice, rotis, etc were out. “Modern nutrition science reduces food to the sum total of its nutrients. But food is not a number counted in calories,” she says.
Divekar’s diet plan emphasises the importance of prana (Sanskrit for “life force”), and chooses foods that are fresh, seasonal and local over calorie count. Dr Davare and Pooja Makhija, a dietician from Mumbai, both design meals inspired by the nutritionally-balanced Indian thali. A seasonal, locally-grown vegetable dish, leafy vegetables, fresh salad or kachumber, whole legumes or pulses, dal, cereal (rice or wholewheat roti), a small bowl of yoghurt or glass of buttermilk, a wedge of lemon and a dollop of pickle to stimulate the appetite. There can even be a piece of fish or few pieces of chicken or meat for non-vegetarians. Though the science of counting calories was unknown then, each katori is sized to contain just the right amount of food. Makhija compares the thali to the ‘Eatwell plate’ that replaced the food pyramid in the UK. “Many Indians eat in this style, but dieticians balance the newly-introduced excesses,” says Makhija of the gur-laden dal, rotis dripping with ghee and sweets like gulab jamun that have found their way to the plate.
Spices like coriander seeds, cumin, ginger and curry leaves also score a starring role in the Indian diet. “Ayurveda believes that there are six kinds of tastes — sweet, sour, salty, pungent bitter, astringent — that need to be addressed to satisfy the body,” says Dr Davare, whose book ‘The Live Well Diet’ has recipes designed on these principles by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor. Divekar, who has a new DVD titled ‘Indian Food Wisdom and The Art of Eating Right’ out, champions taboo items like ghee as well as coconuts and peanuts, all ‘super foods of the East’. Even the small, two-hourly meal plan the dieticians all promote is inspired by the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the oldest text describing this form of yoga. “The text says listen to your hunger. The stomach secretes acids every few hours, signalling the brain that it’s time to eat,” Divekar explains.
The Indian diet goal is not numberled — Divekar never asks clients to step on a weighing scale — because the aim is a healthier lifestyle. But this has not discouraged clients — Dr Davare, who began with 10 patients two decades ago, puts the figure at a lakh today and Makhija recorded an almost 60 per cent increase in patients over 11 years. The waiting list to consult with any of them can extend up to three months.
The figures indicate how successful the Indian diet has been, and like yoga, its promoters believe it has international potential. Amadea Morningstar, US-based dietician who has co-authored ‘The Ayurvedic Cookbook’, says the Indian thali is already being served in New York, Santa Fe and other parts of the globe. “It includes a generous amount of nutrients lacking in many Western diets — particularly fibre and vitamins. Many Westerners would love this meal,” she says. But just the fact that Indians are appreciating it is a blessing, says Davare. “We’re getting back to our roots and that’s good.”
Sonal
Nerurkar | TOI130901
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