panaecea

In today’s fast driven life health has become a primary concern, irrespective of age group. As we all know,  health is now a comprehensive term encompassing  not only what we eat and the physical activity we undertake but also how we lead our lives and even how we think and react to our surrounds and people. In other words,  our eating habits, exercise schedule, lifestyle and patterns of thoughts and emotions.

At my age, I know it’s important to eat healthy, do exercise in moderation, take walks regularly keeping in mind the climatic conditions, have a disciplined routine, keep a tab on blood pressure, sugar and other body parameters and think positive and be happy, grateful and content.

But out of all these, at least in my case, I have seen that the diet I follow has the greatest impact not only on my body but also on my mental state. It took some time for me to grasp that eating healthy and health food is not the same. Through advertisements and other marketing gimmicks, Companies producing food supplements , make us believe that what they are selling is the best for our health and if we are not consuming them we are depriving our bodies of their benefits.

Almost every day there is one article or the other in newspapers and magazines on exotic fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts proclaiming them to be health mandates or better sources of nutrients than what we are usually partaking in our everyday meals.

My personal experience tells me that the gut works on its own memory – what it has been fed all along and what it is used to digesting. Experimenting with food does not always produce desirable results. If our gut is not used to these items it may not be able to extract the best out of them. As a result, we may develop allergic reactions or simply end up with an upset stomach.

We have to simply monitor that our daily intake has sufficient amounts of fibre, protein, the requisite amount of fat and carbs (on the lower side) and liquids. The spice and oil level should be controlled. And voila! We have our healthy khana ready.

It may sound rather funny but I have seen whenever I stick to a vegetarian diet low on spices and oil I have a heartening feel – a sense of well being. This reaction may be purely psychological. The fact remains that I am a non-vegetarian. Medically I am required to have fish, egg and chicken. And after sticking to a prolonged course of vegetarian meals I do get a biological urge to have non-veg.

However, since I have got into the habit of often excluding non-veg from my diet I have developed an intolerance towards the raw smell of fish and meat. As a result, I avoid going to meat and fish shops and usually order over the phone or online. Also post preparation the kitchen needs a thorough cleaning too.

My peevishness has made me depend on veg proteins like soya (beans), paneer, and whole pulses more. To make things exciting I try out new recipes and also create my own. Recently I have been trying my hand at soya kebabs. My idea of cooking is tasty but easy preparations in less time. If the process is unavoidably long I do it in phases.

Like in the case of soya kebab which requires three to four steps – (i) pressure cooking the overnight soaked dal with soya granules and all the masalas, (ii) grinding them into a preferably coarse paste, (iii) drying the water content in the paste on slow fire (iv) rolling into shape when in room temperature (and freezing them, if required, for later use) and (v) frying them in a non-stick pan brushed with oil.

Lo! Your chatpataa soya kebab is ready!!

I am sure you all must be knowing better ways of making kebabs. But this is the way I cook. So far they have turned out well though I am still refining the process. In case you’d like to share some tips I am eager to know.

Looking forward to your value addition.

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