Your grandmother knows food best, says nutritionist Kavita Devgan She picks the traditional eating habits that have always been good for your health

| | Published 10.10.18, 07:54 PM

Nutritionist Kavita Devgan has recently written Ultimate Grandmother Hacks: 50 Kickass Traditional Habits For a Fitter You. She believes there was inherent logic and intrinsic value in traditional Indian food habits. Excerpts from Kavita speak... The roots of the book I started writing a column for a publication and everyone expected me to research and write about cuisines like Mediterranean, Peruvian — which is supposedly the hottest cuisine now — or Greek. I realised that even without consciously thinking about what I wanted to write, I was leaning towards traditional ways of eating. Finally, I thought, why not write about our own traditional Indian cuisine? When I actually started writing, it was difficult to contain in that one column of 700 words. I just couldn’t stop. So that’s where the book began. This book is dedicated to my mother and my grandmother. I’m in awe of their intrinsic nutrition sense. It made it very easy for me to study nutrition. The first chapter on the first day of college and I was like, oh, I already know this! Morning habits Morning habits are important, but we don’t always know the rationale behind them. Take lemon juice and warm water. It’s a winning balance. Warm water is good to have early in the morning, because it cleanses you. And the lemon juice boosts your metabolism. If you add a little bit of cinnamon to it, it balances your blood sugar and makes sure it stays stable throughout the day. Crushed pods of garlic, first thing in the morning, are also a great idea. There’s a full chapter on garlic in the book. It’s the best anti-inflammatory food you can eat. It has allicin, which boosts your good cholesterol and brings your bad cholesterol down. It is a detoxifier and a diuretic, so it helps with bloating and water-weight. Just crush it and air it a little to get the health-giving compound. The deal with dal For many vegetarians, and even for those who are not vegetarian, our protein content is not really up to the mark. Dal is a very good way of getting it. It’s chock-a-block with most of the minerals that we need, which is again lacking in most of our diets. It’s an interesting combination of complex carbohydrates and proteins. It’s so versatile, you can’t really get bored of it.


Don’t banish the laddoo I eat only Indian mithai. There are a couple of rules with them. Firstly, moderation is important. Desserts have always been a part of everyday meals or thalis but you need to look at the portion sizes. They were always tiny. If you have that, it’s not going to harm you. You’ll be happy and satiated. But nowadays, the serving sizes are much larger. Then, of course, it’s bad. The second rule is the kind of dessert you eat. I’d say, don’t even look at the calorie count. Instead, see if it is giving you any goodness at all, or if it is just maida and sugar, and then make a choice. The third thing, which is a little difficult to practise, is to make our own desserts at home. Jaggery is a great option for sugar, as is pure honey. Friends with fat Cutting out fat completely is a terrible idea, because your hormones will stop functioning and wreak havoc in your body. You may lose weight, but you will end up with 10 other health problems. We need a good balance of different kinds of fats. There are saturated fats, polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats and you need all three of them, but you need a little more of the last two. It’s a good idea to keep changing oils, or to use a combination of multiple ones. Seedy matters Seeds are really underrated, but they’re just as beneficial as nuts, with the same good fats, vitamins and minerals. It’s also important to eat the fruit with the seed and the peel, and vegetables too. Even potatoes should be eaten with the peel, because that’s where most of the minerals are.