Carb up!

Will you all stop fearing the word carbohydrates as our bodies cannot function without it? You will be shocked to know that I recommend that 50 per cent of your food has to be carbohydrates.

This doesn't mean you pile on roti's, rice, and potatoes.

Let me run you through the entire family of carbohydrates.

Your energisers, immunity boosters, and the food that keep your weight and health parameters in tip top conditions.

Fruits

All fruits too count up to your daily carbohydrate content from mangoes to berries to bananas as well as the jackfruit.

Vegetables

Most people don't even know that vegetables are carbohydrates. Please don't have an astonished look as you read this.

From the 50 per cent carbs that I recommend daily, 30 per cent has to be from vegetables.

In India, we have a large repertoire of vegetables, but I have to remind you to make vegetables from vegetables.

That is your onion, cucumber, tomato, carrot, pumpkin, leafy greens, cabbage, cauliflower, the entire gourd family and not from your paneer, lentils and pulses.

Whole grains

I am fed up of health fads that promote cutting out grains. We need them to satiate. It is just that we need to have a small quantity of them and not heaps. I love the different ones that we get here. Not just plain wheat, we have whole wheat, corn flour, barley, and semolina.

Unpolished rice

The southern, eastern, and coastal regions of India survive on rice.

Just remember unpolished long grained rice is the way to good health. Whether it is black, white, red, or brown, we have them all here.

Millets

The world is touting to eat millets we have been eating it since aeons.

It is a common practice in India to change grains with the regions and seasons.

Western India has bajra (pearl millet) in winter and jowar (sorghum) in summer.

In Southern India, the nachni (finger millet) was very common and throughout the country sama (little millet) was a popular rice replacement.

Seed grains

Seed grains are a part of India as it was very common to fast once a week and sometimes over months where one could not eat any grain, so the seeds of the plant were dried and milled and then consumed.

Amaranth (rajgirah) and buckwheat (kuttu) are the popular ones.

Tubers

Potato, sweet potato, purple yam, suran, and colocasia don't mistake these as vegetables as they are grain replacements.

So, a meal could be a soup, salad, a side of vegetable and any one of the above in small quantities.

Others: Some other grain replacements could be white or yellow corn, water chestnut, puffed rice, makhana, popcorn, wholegrain bread, rice vermicelli to name a few.

The carbs that need to be thrown out are the refined white flour, bread, pav, pastas, noodles, cookies, cakes, white sugars.

Empty calories are your nutritional robbers spiking up your blood parameters and robbing you of good health.

Fear not the good carbs, add them on.

The choice is plenty.

Just remember that an ideal nutritionally balanced daily carbohydrate intake would be vegetables – 30 per cent, one fruit- 5 per cent and grains, millets, seed grains or unpolished rice and others- 15 per cent thus totalling to 50 per cent of your plate.

Always add the good quality fat on them for ease of digestion along with your spices.