India is home to 1.3 billion people, and lately, it seems, 1.3 billion wellness trends. In the past year and a half, even people disinterested in health crazes are unable to avoid the golden tsunami of turmeric drinks, the proliferation of ghee and coconut oil in grocery stores, and headlines about how khichdi is the magically detoxing concoction you need right now. Everyone can spell ashwagandha, and Ayurveda, India’s thousands-of-years-old holistic healing system, is now an Instagram hashtag with over a million posts (many of them featuring white women). To put it simply, Indian food has become the darling of the health world.

It’s a radical shift from Indian food’s long-standing reputation in the West of being the spicy, cream-laden, junky takeout that would stain your nails, make your clothes smell, and give you inevitable stomach issues. So how did the perception of Indian food swing from diarrhea to detox?

Basu Ratnam in Inday, the fast-casual mini-chain he founded in NYC. Photo by Chelsie Craig

“Gwyneth Paltrow,” says Basu Ratnam with a laugh when I posed this question. Ratnam is the owner of Inday, a restaurant with multiple locations in New York City that melds his passion for health with his Indian upbringing. While Paltrow—who was an avid yoga enthusiast before she became the Goop queen—can’t take full credit for the rise of turmeric tonics and khichdi cleanses, Ratnam is correct to point to a certain, ahem, limber set of people as the catalysts of change.

“The same philosophy that gave us yoga also talked about mindfulness, meditation, and Ayurvedic eating,” he says. “I think the interest in it is a natural evolution.”

Yoga, which originated in India, became a phenomenon in the West more than a decade ago. The practice is deeply connected to meditation, which has made its way into our everyday lives via mobile apps, airline entertainment, and seemingly every TED talk about how to be a successful entrepreneur. Hygiene routines like oil pulling, using a tongue scraper, and dry brushing were touted by (mostly white) wellness influencers, and retailers like CAP Beauty and Goop started capitalizing on the trend.

When health is a multitrillion-dollar industry, turmeric becomes much more than a sickness remedy.

Sana Javeri Kadri, the founder of spice company Diaspora Co., sees the rise of Ayurveda, a term that wouldn’t so easily roll off tongues in the West just a few years ago, as connected to the popularity of yoga. “I think people who have access to seeing Indian food through the lens of Ayurveda are people who are into yoga, or some form of appropriated Indian culture,” she says.

True Ayurveda is a labyrinthine set of rules and guidelines, but there are aspects that are extremely approachable, like not eating late at night, avoiding combinations of certain foods, or using spices such as turmeric to treat ailments. These principles are so woven into the fabric of everyday routines in South Asian culture, both on the subcontinent and in the diaspora, that many don’t realize they are actively participating in it. “I always thought I was someone who grew up without Ayurveda,” says Kadri. “But it was more that it was so a part of our daily lives that we never considered it a health thing.”

But when health is a multitrillion-dollar industry, turmeric becomes much more than a sickness remedy. It’s in skin care and on clothes, in chocolate, eggs, drink mixes, and snacks, and, seeing this success, the industry has begun to fetishize other common Ayurvedic ingredients. Ghee, coconut oil, ashwagandha, and moringa have all ridden in on turmeric’s gold coattails. It’s only helped that today’s fad diets like paleo, keto, and Whole30 demonize dairy and gluten, which are easily avoided in Indian cooking, and valorize fats like ghee and coconut.

We’re more skeptical than ever before about Western medicine, and so we look to other resources and cultures for the remedies we need.

The West also has a new obsession with “plant-based” eating, essentially a term for veganism but without the militant connotation, which has buttressed this interest in Indian food and Ayurveda, says Vandana Sheth, a registered dietitian and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. While neither Indian cuisine nor Ayurveda are completely meatless approaches to eating, it’s extremely simple to find vegetarian and non-dairy options that are “flavorful and healthy,” adds Sheth.