Why There Are Changes In Our Diet Choices
“Gone are those days when we sat with our families for wholesome meals and consumed the food that is fresh and warm”
ow that one in four men/women are obese in the country and India has become the diabetic capital of the world and when deaths by cardiac ailments have increased, we all seem to have come to our senses, when it comes to our diet choices.
Our Relation With Food
A decade or two earlier, when the prevalence of obesity, diabetes and cardiac diseases had just begun to rise, food and its relation to these had been established, but rarely practiced. So, we gorged on burgers, pizzas, noodles and pastas and enjoyed the fat and sugar loaded delicacies to the extreme. We lived to eat! We loved food! Or instead, we loved restaurant food!
However, considering the current health scenario, we have now re-understood the relationship of food with the most prevalent diseases and started making dietary changes. Thus, we now eat to live!
Medical Conditions And Food Choices
Nevertheless, In both cases, love for Indian authentic food is barely visible. Today, food for us means carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Food means the adequate ratios of all these macronutrients and the sole purpose of these is to get our weight down, manage diabetes or treat hypertension.
It is thus imperative, we ask ourselves some vital questions: How many of us think of food as food? How many of us enjoy food as food? And how many of us can resist making a face at a methi or aloo sabzee?
Pure Foods And Their Importance
The ‘Bhagavad Gita’ highlights the importance of food. It states that the foods that increase life, purity, strength. health, joy and cheerfulness, which are savory and oleaginous are sattvic or pure foods. The foods that are extremely bitter, sour, saline, pungent and dry are rajasic and tasteless, foul smelling; stale are tamasic or dark foods.
Bringing Back Old Food Habits
Gone are those days when we sat with our families for wholesome meals and consumed the food that is fresh and warm. We ate almost all food groups including cereal, pulse, vegetable, nuts and fruits. We ate in a calm state in a relaxed environment.
We observed each morsel and chewed 32 times! We felt every morsel pass down our mouths, ready for churning in our stomachs. We realized the signals of hunger and satiety and we stopped when we were nearly full.
Our taste buds need to be modified to love what we originally did and it is important for us to go back to those times, especially in a fast moving career driven world like today. Thus, it is now time to prioritize food once again and love it!