Jaggery, Keto, and Other Food Myths Debunked (feat. Krish Ashok & Dr. Priyanka)

[00:00:00] Today on The Big Story. You know, we always correlate food as a reward mechanism which is wrong. If your exams are over you get an ice cream or if you've done well, you know, we go out for a pizza outing or whatever.

[00:00:13] We've assigned values and virtues to certain foods and we've, you know, made some other foods like paap kat liya esko khake. Why do you think that is? The science itself is hard to pin down and it's still evolving that it leaves room

[00:00:25] for people to come and scare people about, oh this you must not do, that you must not do. Is non-vegetarian protein better than vegetarian protein? I'm just gonna cut this part and forward it to all my WhatsApp groups. The views expressed in this podcast are the speaker's own.

[00:00:41] The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them. Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the third episode of The Big Story. This is me Prateek. And this is Anjali. And today we are gonna talk about...

[00:00:54] The one thing that people can't stop talking about ever since the beginning of mankind. And that is food. But more importantly, we're talking about what is inside our food. That is nutrition and how should you be looking at food?

[00:01:10] How are we looking at food and do we really need to change anything? Clearly I am not the best person to talk about food and neither are you. So who do we have on our chat today? So we have three guests this time around.

[00:01:23] So our first guest today is Krish Ashok. And if you've been scrolling on your Instagram feeds lately, you might see him around. And he is one of the biggest myth-busters around food and nutrition on Instagram currently.

[00:01:40] Anything that you believe that you've been told in fact is bad for your health. Be it microwaves, be it air fryers, be it salt, sugar, anything and everything. This guy will tell you what is the right way to be thinking about these foods.

[00:01:56] And you'll probably learn a lot just by one scroll on his feed. And along with him we have Dr Priyanka Rohatki. She is the chief nutritionist at Apollo Hospital. She is from Bangalore and she's like an overall smart person when it comes to food and nutrition.

[00:02:13] I mean, she's just amazing when you talk to her about food and nutrition. And that's why we have her on chat. Other than that, the third person is... The third person is a newbie on this podcast as well as at our company. As well as in our lives.

[00:02:30] In our lives, yes. We have Krithi Ghai who is our newly joined intern. Yeah. I'll tell you a short story of how we decided to include her on the show. While producing this episode, we were chatting about who should be the best and who shouldn't.

[00:02:46] And Krithi was a part of that conversation. She really had really interesting insights and anecdotes about her share of, you know, fat diets and all of that. And I'm like, you tell me, come on the mic and let us talk about it. So, that's how she's here.

[00:03:02] And without wasting any more time, Anjali, let us... Let's do this first before we, you know, call up our guests. Let us have a chat with Krithi. Yeah. And I feel like Krithi will really be able to tell us,

[00:03:17] to break down what goes inside the mind of a person when they are obsessing over their food. Yeah. And especially of your generation. People of your generation and not my generation. Just do this. Divide the world into generations. We are all... Thank you.

[00:03:33] We are divided by generations, united by terrible food habits. Nice one. Hi Krithi. Hi Krithi. Hi guys, how are you? We're doing great. How are you? We're good. Okay, so... Why do you think you are here, Krithi? Do you think you've been held hostage?

[00:03:48] The honest answer is because I'm an intern and I couldn't say no to my bosses. Wow! Give her the card Anjali. She doesn't want to be so honest. No, no. I think I'm here because I think I rightfully represent the harmful relationship

[00:04:04] a lot of Gen Z may have with food or nutrition because I personally have had a very tumultuous relationship with food and nourishing your body and nutrition. So yeah, maybe I'm here to represent that. So what are you hoping to get from this conversation?

[00:04:22] What are your biggest questions from our guests, Krish and Dr. Priyanka? I think from Krish and Dr. Priyanka, you know the thing is one of the biggest phenomena I feel has started happening since COVID is that a lot of these fat diets, such as keto, paleo, intermittent fasting,

[00:04:43] even if they are not medically viable for everybody out there and every person out there, a lot of people try to give it sort of a medical backing to convince you and to convince themselves that no, this will work for me and this is healthy.

[00:05:00] So I think just understanding how to deal with that misinformation or that idea from the doctor and Krish is something I want to understand. As someone who might have fallen in love. Definitely have, definitely have. For our listeners, take us through all of these diets

[00:05:15] that you've been through and what are these diets? So like keto is supposed to be, I can eat all the cheese I want and if I'm a non-vegetarian, I can eat all the non-veg I want and I can have pizzas and burgers but they just won't have carbohydrates

[00:05:30] but it'll taste good. So that's how we perceive keto and also you will lose a lot of weight very fast. That's how keto is perceived. Paleo, I'll be very honest, I don't think any one of us know what paleo is. I don't think we know what paleo is.

[00:05:45] There's some, you know, there's like this gentle sort of rumour and there's this understanding that isn't paleo like what we ate when we were nomads? I'm not kidding. That's how we've perceived paleo as well. But wasn't that keto because keto is a meat-based diet

[00:06:02] and it's a protein-based diet? No, keto is a meat-based diet and it's a protein but it's cooked. Okay. It's focused on not having carbs. Paleo is supposed to be about... Paleo is like full kachadam chak. Yes, exactly. And in terms of intermittent fasting,

[00:06:19] I think intermittent fasting is just an excuse for the younger generation to eat what they want but just for eight hours a day. And then they feel if they fast for 16 then they've just made up for it. It's such a nice explanation of all of these diets.

[00:06:34] It's just an excuse. Okay, so what do you think is the biggest thing that is in between the young Indian youth and a good healthy lifestyle? You know, I... People will probably think this answer is extremely cliche but I generally think it's their mental health

[00:06:55] and I think it's their mental perception of their physical health. You know, the whole idea of wanting to look for a quick and easy solution or wanting to get rid of your excess fat or whatever it may be or even going for a fat diet,

[00:07:08] it stems from a very genuine place but then that genuine place of... I heard wanting to get rid of your exes. Is that another separate big story episode? That is also a big story episode that happened between Pratik and his therapist. Yeah, you were saying.

[00:07:26] I think the ideas of body dysmorphia or your body image, they stem from how you've perceived your physicality and how to take care of your physicality. That's where the relationship with food sort of comes in. So I feel like today,

[00:07:41] the gap between my generation and a healthy lifestyle is not valuing relationship with food. So that's the gap that I feel personally exists between my generation. Anjali, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I feel also there is a huge knowledge gap.

[00:07:59] People are thinking about food but on a surface level. Thinking a lot about food but on a surface level and not exactly. They're focusing a lot on the ingredients without understanding what that ingredient does to your body because I feel like sometimes I don't even know

[00:08:18] what nutrients are in a particular ingredient. I think human society has evolved much faster than human bodies and because of that, the way we consume rewards of all kind, they have evolved so fast that it's getting so hard for our body to catch up

[00:08:40] and now there's like a fundamental dichotomy between what our bodies are made for and what our current realities of our life is and that thing, I think it has sent all of us in like a collective schizophrenia where we all want to know

[00:08:56] everything that we can set this clock. And because of that, there is misinformation and then what Krithi's point comes into play because of all of this confusion, there are things like body mischievous and all of that. So it's like the software is so advanced

[00:09:16] but the hardware isn't compatible. What's the matter? For analogies, you should get an award. We shall start a big story award for the best analogies. I will compete very hard for this one. Alright, so from this conversation, we understood that we have a lot of questions

[00:09:33] and people who have experimented with food, people like me who have barely experimented with food, all of us have a lot of questions. And person like me who wants to experiment. So I think we can now call in our guests and begin this discussion. Shubharm Kareem.

[00:09:50] For that, let's pay some bills. We'll talk to our guests Krishashok and Dr. Priyanka Rohatki but right after this small break, Pakka. Hello, hello. Welcome to the podcast Dr. Priyanka, Krithi and Krish. It is great to have you all here. Thank you so much for having us here.

[00:10:08] How are you feeling? How is your day going? Let's start with Krish. I mean it's not a bad day. Actually, it's slowly, it's Chennai. So it's starting to be tipping from the cool summer to the hot summer. We only have one season here.

[00:10:22] Otherwise, things are actually pretty good here. Okay, so today in this chat, we are basically going to talk about food habits and nutrition and how a younger India, the modern 2023 kind of India, looks at food and how it meshes with our lifestyles.

[00:10:43] So let us jump straight into the conversation with Dr. Priyanka. Hi. Hi, hello. Doc, what are the most common things that people come to you for when it comes to nutrition? See, everybody knows that you don't gain weight overnight but everybody is looking for that magic pill

[00:11:05] to just lose weight overnight and they feel that there's some mantra sitting down there which will just make you slim trim and very fit the very next day. So mostly, yes, people are really concerned about their weight and I know that when you do something wrong,

[00:11:22] you are yourself conscious about taking a wrong food habit or making that extra sleep deprivation for yourself or not hydrating with healthy drinks. So you know somewhere but then you want a verification and a solution from somebody else.

[00:11:38] And is this more recent that more and more people are coming to you with problems regarding weight or would you say that more young people are coming to you than you had normally seen in your previous years of practice? Post-COVID, yes, because people have become more sedentary

[00:11:57] compared to what they were earlier and there are more health concerns that we are seeing or maybe people are more health aware because they've seen how immunity and one's lifestyle can really impact their behaviour to a disease progression.

[00:12:11] So, Doc, what do you think is the most basic definition of nutrition? So nutrition is when you eat things which give you good nutrients and how your body assimilates it. And to make it more interesting, we have a certain way of handling the food in our body

[00:12:34] which is called the gut microbiome and it's very much genetic lifestyle and your overall activity level dependent. So if I eat watermelon, vis-a-vis you eating watermelon, both our bodies can have a different repercussion to the same food. So it's how my body assimilates a certain food depending.

[00:12:56] I have a certain gut microbiome, a certain genetics which is making my body behave in a certain way. So how I assimilate the nutrients is what is nutrition all about. And you're saying a lot of it has to do with what's in your gut

[00:13:09] like already what's in your gut and what's in your gut and what's in your mouth? Yeah, like as an addition to that, I'm assuming there is no one size fits all solution to any sort of nutrition problem, right? Absolutely.

[00:13:23] Then why do you think, and this is where Krish can also jump in, why do you think we see so many like these blanket statements? Like we are going to have one section where just all of us are going to

[00:13:36] shoot myths at y'all and you will be like, okay, this happens, this doesn't happen. So why do you think this culture is there that this is bad? How do people generalize make such generalize statements? So casually and why do they do it in the first place?

[00:13:50] We've assigned values and virtues to certain foods and we have made some other foods like, why do you think that is? It's because somewhere we've lost our balance. So if we go back to what we were eating, where eating out used to be very infrequent,

[00:14:08] which may not be the case relevant in today's scenario with both husband and wife working. But if we try and eat major part of the food as healthy choices and then sometimes a little bit of indulgence the body can handle.

[00:14:21] But if our daily cooking is also most of the foods which are manufactured in plants, we grow on a plant. So you know, natural versus processed. So that's where I would want to cut you for a second.

[00:14:34] You said manufactured in plants from a plant in plants versus grown on a plant. So like would you elaborate like a factory setting where you pick up bags of food, like a packet of chips processed foods like manufactured in a processing plant rather than made on a plant.

[00:14:52] We have our thumbnail title and all sorted. Thanks a lot for that. Oh yeah, interesting. We think we are modern in getting into globalization and we've forgotten our basic basics of the food. If we go back, we can definitely strike that balance and follow moderation.

[00:15:09] If I could maybe add this particular thing, right? So the broader point about I think processed food, the growth of processed food. So essentially eating food that is largely tends to be devoid of fiber. That's primarily it, right? And high on sugar, high on salt.

[00:15:24] I don't think we have evolved to deal with that level of calorie and flavor density. Hyper palatable our brains can't. So that's one aspect of the whole thing. I think your specific point about why does everyone have an opinion

[00:15:37] that I think there's a little bit, slightly something more sociological about why there is so much misinformation and multiple theories about nutrition and a lot less about certain other things. There are no, there's no debates and multiple people weighing in on say gravity or thermodynamics.

[00:15:53] That's sort of, you know, in a sense, so I think we have to make this point that those are settled sciences. Nutrition particularly for me has been observing, right? So I started out focusing on really just flavor and cooking and the science of food.

[00:16:05] And then when I, the problem is that 90% of my comments on Instagram would be, Oh no, you're not supposed to use this. You're not supposed to use the microwave. You're not supposed to use this. So it turns out that many people don't seem to be enjoying food,

[00:16:16] but really just having these random misconceptions about nutrition and just the misinformation universe is so huge. You don't remember that modern medicine is actually, you know, effectively speaking in India less than a hundred years old, right? But, but people have been cooking and feeding each other for millennia,

[00:16:32] you know, since the dawn of mankind. There is a ton of what we call traditional wisdom, traditional knowledge. My grandmother's teaching, you know, their daughters and so on. So that knowledge has largely been kind of passed down.

[00:16:43] So, you know, so the thing is that when you get to a doctor, there is already a problem. Absolutely. Yeah. But food is something that food is food is something that you do well before that. Right? And so a lot of traditional wisdom about avoiding chronic illnesses

[00:16:58] exist in all societies as part of just good eating habits. Right? So the problem is that one, as the doctor said, that everyone is unique. Genetics plays a role. Gender plays a role. Your mood plays a role. Your stress, your lifestyle, sedentary, non-sedentary.

[00:17:13] So many variables that the science itself is hard to pin down and it's still evolving that it leaves room for people to come and scare people about, oh, this you must not do, that you must not do.

[00:17:24] And I think, you know, that it just, it is one of those spaces where everyone can come and become viral by seeing something scary. Absolutely. And that's exactly what is happening right now. And there are no, there's no easy way to go to a doctor.

[00:17:38] A doctor will actually take nuance and say, it's complicated. I can't give you a yes or no answer. I can't give you a medicine that can cause you to lose weight. Right? Yeah. But on the other side, it's easy to scare you and say,

[00:17:49] if you eat this, you will get cancer. If you do this, you know, you'll get cancer. Right? It's actually crazy. People don't realize that the number of plants that naturally have carcinogens is actually far higher than the tiny amount of say,

[00:18:00] you know, one preservative that you might use, which again, importance again is moderation as the doctor said. Yeah. If your diet actually is sort of eating what your grandmother ate, but accounting for the fact that in your grandmother's generation,

[00:18:12] you know, people probably cycled five kilometers to their school and so on. And you are just sitting, you know, and, you know, scrolling on WhatsApp all day or Instagram all day. I think you have to account for that. You have to appropriately reduce your, your calorie intake.

[00:18:24] And sometimes I think the people don't want to do that, but instead they want to find easier solutions. Okay, let me just avoid this one ingredient. Let me add this one ingredient. Let me eat turmeric water and it'll make do some magic.

[00:18:36] They want those easy solutions for the harder things to actually eat less. And that in a sense, I think as you know, is this ecosystem of, you know, misinformation that's out there. You talked about the ecosystem of misinformation

[00:18:47] and you also talked about people getting scared by a lot of these misinformation which are presented as fact, right? So we have Krithi here who has had her fair share of diets and her, you know, journey with nutrition and all of that.

[00:19:04] So she's had a roller coaster of a relationship with her food. So Krithi, describe your relationship with food and nutrition. That's a loaded question. But I think going off of what Serge has said, one thing that I really agree with is how many a times

[00:19:24] to make an unhealthy habit or lifestyle convenient for my generation or even the generation above me, we try to avoid certain food groups. For example, I've had a very long and difficult relationship with diets such as keto or intermittent fasting and I completely agree with what you said

[00:19:47] because somewhere I did not want to give up on eating a pizza or a burger. So I was just like, let me just remove the carbs from that and then I can have as much cheese as I want.

[00:19:57] As soon as Krithi said keto, I could see Chris's face light up. Yeah, continue Krithi please. Because we've had COVID yes, but that epidemic of keto and paleo and intermittent fasting and 18 hours not eating, I've seen it all. I've seen everything. And you've tried it all?

[00:20:20] I've tried it all. I remember I have this hilarious story of when I went to college for the first time and my roommate and I, we decided to do intermittent fasting together because we were eating dining food and it was extremely unhealthy.

[00:20:36] Every day we would start our fast like at 9pm. 10pm I would see her with a tub of ice cream and she would finish it and she would go off to sleep. And then the next morning I would be like, you know, Gauri,

[00:20:49] like I saw you, you were eating, she's like no. I fasted. I fasted for eight hours. So you know just the things we tell ourselves to convince ourselves, I think that's something I really agreed with and I think what I find very interesting

[00:21:02] and I would like to ask you, and I would also like to ask the doctor. Many a times people try to take like unhealthy lifestyle choices and diets such as keto and give it sort of backing from like a medical professional or a doctor.

[00:21:16] And the thing is, you know that ultimately now if tomorrow I'm doing keto and I'm a little unsure because people are telling me it's unhealthy but there is a medical professional who, you know, is saying no, no, you can do it and it's good for you.

[00:21:28] How do you combat that level of misinformation? Because you're supposed to trust that. You know, so this is just a question I had. Doctor, you want to go first? Sure. So see, I would like to really comment on this.

[00:21:40] This is a pain point for us because we have so many Google doctorate patients who come to us and they would have followers and they would be following somebody who may be a quack and since the following is so long or they have some celebrity status

[00:21:56] so they feel that it is absolutely right for me to do that. Now we need to understand we are all lay people. We're all middle class lay people. We do not have two hours of gymming time. We don't have a personal trainer or a personal dietitian

[00:22:09] or we don't have very fancy kind of fruits available on our platter or a magic pill imported multivitamin which is there. So given the scenario, if we try to make drastic changes in our eating habit we are somewhere affecting our gut microbiome.

[00:22:24] I'd like to elaborate a little bit there. We have close to three trillion bacteria in our body and 85% of it is good bacteria. So this is going to give us immunity to prevent a lot of diseases. Now when we go on crazy patterns of keto diet

[00:22:41] which has barely any carbohydrate our good bacteria does not get the prebiotic or the carbohydrate to thrive on and then after when we achieve whatever goal of keto we wanted to 16 kgs or 20 kgs when we try to restart our body is not able to absorb those nutrients well

[00:23:00] and we get into irritable bubbles in Rome episodes of constipation followed by diarrhea and so on and so forth. So we've played very badly with our gut health and it's very difficult to get that back. In the bargain we've also picked up low immunity

[00:23:16] so we've developed allergies and intolerances to a lot of foods which we were happily eating otherwise. So these crazy fashionable, words like gluten free, lactose free for not a medical reason but for intolerances which are interpreted otherwise come into picture. Exactly. Intermittent fasting to some extent is scientific

[00:23:37] but should be done in the right way so people just want to have that period of fasting but don't follow with exercise. So when you don't exercise you lose all your muscle mass. You start looking more sicker at the weight loss rather than fitter.

[00:23:51] So if you're really looking at fat loss you also need to get into fitness. You also need to look fit. Your body has to be more strong in terms of its immunity and other things. So I strongly believe we should not play around.

[00:24:05] We are not guinea pigs to experiment on ourselves. If you want to follow anybody on the social media please look at their credentials, look at their work, their scientific backing. Have they really been prescribing, publishing papers? Do they have some evidence to what work they are doing?

[00:24:21] Rather than just looking... And doctor would you say that for anyone who is planning on following a certain regime or diet they should have like a medical expert who they've vetted their process through rather than maybe trying to make one for themselves

[00:24:41] or borrowing a regime from someone else. Absolutely. See, people like to follow their friends or relatives who've got some quick results but your body is not the same and that relative or friend may not be qualified. So you know you can't experiment on yourself.

[00:24:58] So go for a qualified medical professional or a dietitian and then become a guinea pig if you really want to experiment. One critical point that she makes about the tendency for people to believe either just their friends, their social network and influencers

[00:25:12] is particularly dangerous when it comes to nutrition and health. I'm someone who's sort of been on social media for the longest time. Since 2007, I've seen how information flows happen and a lot of my work in my day job in software etc. also sort of touches upon behaviour science

[00:25:30] in terms of what kind of behaviours do people exhibit online? How do information flow? How do trust networks get built and so on? And this is particularly important because what I find is that we need to really diagnose why people who are actual experts

[00:25:45] don't have a loud enough social media voice while absolute quacks do. So this is a huge problem, right? And it's not as easy as saying Dr. Priyanka needs to spend all her precious time on Instagram. I don't think that's the solution because her time is better spent

[00:25:59] actually dealing with patients than actually sitting and debunking stuff on social media, right? On the other hand, I think another interesting element to Krithi's point one of my favourite exercises is when people say, hey, you know what? I believe this because I found a white paper

[00:26:15] that agrees with what I say. I said, you give me a claim and I will find you 10 papers that agree with you and 10 papers that disagree with you. That's not how science works, right? The average person is not really good at reading science papers

[00:26:27] and medical papers are filled with a lot of jargon and you need years and years of training to be able to understand them, right? And again, people don't pay attention that many of these tests may be on rats. Many of these tests may be on

[00:26:39] in another country again. We are all different. Genetics is different, right? That's the reason why we have qualified doctors who can add their practical experiences of dealing with patients and update themselves with the science when necessary, right? So it's equally important to tell people that please don't interpret

[00:26:55] some random white paper you read, right? Because you wouldn't know how to read the paper in the first place, right? So this again is the part of the problem with many of these fat diets and this particular super food ingredient. This is amazing, right?

[00:27:06] So there will be one, a bunch of papers that will say this is amazing. A bunch of papers that will say that this will cause liver toxicity. And you'll be like, how do I figure it out? But a doctor can tell the difference between well in what conditions,

[00:27:17] in what concentration, in what situation, right? And all of that matters and that's why you need for people to actually, we need to improve the public trust in medical professions. That again kind of goes back to the fact that you don't really see a medical professional

[00:27:33] till you have a serious problem. Yeah. Right? It's not like we're actually teaching basics of what is a balanced meal in school. We don't teach kids to cook, right? For starters, right? Only home, home science people learn to cook, right? And so it is actually,

[00:27:50] so in a sense I think basic knowledge of nutrition and preventive healthcare in the sense has such a tremendous effect on reducing the workload when you actually get to actual problems, right? Doctor, he just mentioned that, you know, if you have to visit a doctor,

[00:28:08] it's probably too late. Now do you think there is an actual lack of screenings on time? I don't have regular checkups. I don't, I don't know what's happening with my body if XYZ vitamin is less or more. Only if some test is recommended to me,

[00:28:26] that's when I know. So do you think that there is also a lack of access for all of these screening measures which can probably detect a lot of these changes when they are at a, you know, corrective stage? Yes, definitely. So we are screening less

[00:28:40] and we are also seeing a lot of population with denial. Okay. That, you know, if I once or twice my blood pressure reading or my blood sugar reading was high, that was one random episode in my life. Maybe I had jalebi's that day.

[00:28:54] But you don't realize that, you know, the body is indicating something and people generally sit on symptoms and the symptoms are quite generic. And they say, if we go to the doctor, he will definitely get something out of it. Yeah. So you know, better avoid that kind of...

[00:29:10] So I think it is needed that we test ourselves because so many investigations are available which can actually pick up pre-diabetes, which can actually pick up liver health quite early. So, you know, that's something that since it's available, we should make use of it.

[00:29:26] We know we are not in the best of our lifestyle. Actually, I wanted to sort of address the other end of this, which is with the... Like you mentioned after COVID, people are looking at their health more seriously. But at the same time,

[00:29:42] we're seeing a sort of orthorexia or like an obsessive need to eat healthy that has come up. So have you noticed that as well where people are, you know, getting really scared for things that maybe do not require so much obsession? What's the term called orthorexia? Orthorexia.

[00:30:01] Orthorexia, yeah. So they are into that notion that they have to eat very, very, very healthy and they've auto-restricted a lot of stuff. Oh, 100% Yeah. So you know, they would eliminate milk, they would eliminate all dairy products. They would say gluten is causing the inflammation in my body.

[00:30:18] So let me get rid of all the weeds. So you know, you're not realizing what other micronutrients you are missing out, magnesium, potassium. Those are very important in the body. And also, I know it's simple. There's also an economic angle to this, right? Exactly.

[00:30:33] You know, you obsess over these things. You're actually also increasing your amount of money you spend, right? So you're like, no, I will only eat A2 milk, A2 cow ghee, which is 2000 rupees a kg and so on. Right, exactly. And you're like,

[00:30:46] your focus should be actually to pay attention to the overarching amount of fat you have in your diet rather than figuring out whether it's a cheap ghee or expensive ghee. And then you actually mess up somewhere else, meaning that yeah, you go kind of go cheap elsewhere

[00:30:58] and where it might actually make a big difference. Yeah. And when you're protein deficient, you clearly have sugar cravings. So your body physiologically indicates and then you think, you know, I've done very good. I've eaten a very skimpy breakfast. I've skipped my lunch.

[00:31:11] So I deserve this chocolate for myself. And then the portions can be as bad as Krithi was telling us. That happens. No, but doctor, like you spoke about how there's a lot of terminology is used such as gluten free or sugar free or almond milk and oat milk

[00:31:27] and just a lot of these general perceptions. Do you feel like the rise of these just expensive products and also the rise of social media has led to a lot of people just diagnosing themselves without even trying to go forward and get a medical opinion themselves deciding that

[00:31:47] like you said, the information in my body is because I probably have a gluten intolerance or a carb intolerance or normal milk. I'm lactose intolerance. So do you feel like people have started misdiagnosing themselves a lot more too? That's very true because if you go to anybody,

[00:32:04] you meet somebody after five, six days also they're judging you. You've lost weight, gained weight. Say for example, gluten, let's take that example. So people would like to go off gluten without realizing that it takes 21 days for the system to completely eliminate the gluten.

[00:32:20] So you're not eating your rotis, but you're eating your biscuits, you're eating your pasta, your pizza, occasional intake of sandwiches. And then you say that, oh, I'm eating, I'm not seeing the results though I'm going on a gluten free diet. And since you've compromised somewhere

[00:32:35] you end up eating more elsewhere which may be even more unhealthy. So you know- Even your Asa for Teda will have gluten. Exactly. Yes. So sit down and ask yourself what is it that I'm looking for? Is this something that really gave me a deadly disease

[00:32:52] that I really have to be enemies to that and eliminate it completely? If there's a basis to it that you lack the enzyme and there is some interference in your metabolism, take a test, understand it and then eliminate it. Now I have a devil's advocate question

[00:33:09] for all of y'all. As soon as we get some sort of advice from somebody there is this one phenomena that I am noticing so much which is the but it works for me phenomena where people will say that they tried something

[00:33:25] and like in a lot of cases with me I have seen a friend of mine he is like, okay, I went on keto, I cut sugar, I cut eating after six four or five just told me my list and I could see a difference between

[00:33:39] you know his weight then and now and then he's like but it so it works for me and like how do I deal with that feeling of okay, I'm with him, should I try it? It's confusing for me.

[00:33:52] This is sort of like a very basic also a high school one of the things that we often don't teach is actually critical thinking right? So critical thinking in general requires us to kind of teach not just statistics but also some basic inference mechanisms to prevent

[00:34:08] people from confusing correlation with causation understanding the distinction between anecdotal experiences and aggregate average experiences. I'll give you a very classic example by the way there is a strong correlation between eating ice creams and drowning in the swimming pool. So on the face of it

[00:34:28] you're like, oh okay how does that work? It's because it's very simple in the US ice creams mostly people eat in summer and turns out it's also in summer where they go hit the swimming pool simply statistically speaking you're gonna eat more ice creams

[00:34:42] more people go to swim more people will drown just how it works right? These were not related right? But the problem is that I think the way we sometimes the clickbait headlines that get generated in the media and so on is that sometimes people don't have

[00:34:55] the cognitive tools to be able to distinguish these things which is why I think we need to drill into people's heads that when it comes to medicine and health it worked for me is the worst kind of evidence. It says absolutely nothing

[00:35:08] it worked for you great that's it one you have no idea whether that is what cured it you have no way of knowing and why it worked for you and there's no control right? Say the whole why how drugs are actually tested by taking a control group

[00:35:20] not giving them the drug and this group where you're it's a double blind test right? That is how hard it is to establish that a drug works so you absolutely say that it worked for me is the worst kind of evidence and I think we need to teach

[00:35:32] high school kids that that's the worst kind of evidence you should generally accept for anything no we see it in the clinical trials also when we give a set of people the drug and a set of people the placebo and the placebo groups

[00:35:44] and group comes and tells us oh I felt so good it was so nice please continue and we know that you know we've double blinded them and we've not given them anything so it's the psychology yeah and you can't tell them either yeah exactly

[00:35:57] what's your reaction at that time if somebody comes with a placebo and he's like oh it works for me it's a wonderful time wonderful let's now switch over to the good lifestyle and get the natural drug rather than you know exactly yeah

[00:36:09] interestingly we see a lot of penetration in these suburbs also so we were doing the study which has been going on for the last 15 years which is one of the biggest epidemiological study called the pure study where from suburbs of Rajasthan and Jaipur

[00:36:25] we picked up a lot of very small houses where the house lady used to do everything right from sweeping, mopping and everything and they were really really fat so you know she says I met a poor then I'm slogging you know I wash my own

[00:36:39] and you look at the square feet of the house it is like 600 square feet so even if sitting in this chair if I keep dancing the whole day for 24 hours also I don't burn the calories and the nutritional inadequacy of eating more carbs more fat

[00:36:54] you know no micronutrients no vegetables no fiber in your diet low on protein so this this sort of gives you a good inflammatory mix of non-communicable diseases yes is it because they feel that the 5 rupee biscuit packet will make them fuller sooner then an egg or

[00:37:12] like how do they look at these two it's easy to eat exactly you just open the packet it's so convenient to eat I can pack it for the kids mid-morning snack or something who's gonna then you know beat the egg and make an omelet out of it

[00:37:27] so convenience processed carbs will never make you feel full by the way yeah I mean just a satisfaction in the mother's head so many kids carry donuts cookies, biscuits, cakes for them at morning breakfast and when you give so much of sugar to the child

[00:37:41] the child is only having high cortisol and not concentrating in the class comes back home lethargic goes off to sleep so you're just feeding obesity nothing else exactly but again when you talk about processed carbs and sugars and all of that do you also concede

[00:37:57] the fact that by themselves they aren't the problem it's the question of moderation and you know how frequently you are eating it right no but you are replacing an opportunity to eat healthy with an unhealthy food I could have eaten a banana instead of a biscuit packet

[00:38:13] both had carbohydrates that's an interesting behaviour science point in general I think one of the biggest mistakes worldwide and this is not just in India and the west as well the general prevailing wisdom that somehow it's an individual's fault they must exhibit willpower and eat the right thing

[00:38:31] I think it's actually the wrong thing to say our evolution, our conditioning essentially makes us very very vulnerable like she said household worker buying a 5 rupee packet of biscuit it's convenient you eat it you throw it, you're done, you're filled and so on

[00:38:45] egg I mean you got a cook, you can't eat a raw egg I mean you got to then find a pan you got to find fuel so I think we drastically underestimate the value of changing your environment food environment

[00:38:58] you can't expect people to change themselves as much as you do yes they do need to change but I think you have to change the environment for example in the US school lunches are all like process food but in Europe school lunches no process food no carbonated beverages

[00:39:13] you can see the health differences French kids are way more healthier than American kids are and so in a sense I think it is really about fixing the environment even at home keeping the cookie jar hard to access are not there at all

[00:39:27] or don't keep it by your bedside is a better solution than telling yourself I will only eat two cookies at a time that's very hard to do interesting there's a fascinating behaviour science study that actually there's this interesting study that they did of potato chips

[00:39:43] classic example of hyper palatable high sodium high starch, high fat very addictive and it's hard to stop one is that half the people who eat and you ask them how much they ate they'll underreport it because you don't even know that you're eating that much

[00:40:01] so the interesting thing is that they did the study where they replaced every tenth chip with a red colour chip they choose food colouring out of the usual yellow colour one is red in colour and what they actually found is they found a 30% improvement

[00:40:15] in people actually reducing their chip consumption because the moment they ran into a red chip it made them pause and think oh what is this? the very act of pausing gave the brain time to say oh you've been eating

[00:40:27] it's almost as if when you're eating chips you didn't even know you were eating right? so in a sense it's quite crazy now the research tells us that it's easier to actually fix the environment than to change your own brain actually

[00:40:39] and you also bring this really interesting distinction between changing your lifestyle versus changing your environment because as you said that if you put it on lifestyle and if you put it on one individual that almost becomes impossible so if you actually a very brilliant example is that

[00:40:55] Italian restaurants in the US versus Italian restaurants in Italy there's a fascinating difference and you know the health difference between how healthy Italians tend to be but you would imagine that they're eating roughly the same kind of food but there's a fascinating change right

[00:41:09] when you walk into a restaurant in Italy what's the first thing that comes to the table it's a salad a bowl of salad is what comes and people just start eating the salad if you go to an olive garden or one of those restaurants in the US

[00:41:21] the first thing that will come is a giant bowl of free bread and olive oil and it's free, it's unlimited so you see the difference so you eat all that fiber first you're automatically going to fill yourself up the satiety signals will come much sooner

[00:41:37] you're eventually going to consume less calories if you eat a salad first of course you can tell an individual to eat a salad first but if you create a culture where salad is always served first that's an easier solution in many cases

[00:41:51] what do you have to say about this? absolutely, very thoughtful process and it's not that if you've seen the Japanese difference they're called the bento difference so they have small portions of everything and then you see the sushi which has rice which is just one or two portions

[00:42:07] whereas we eat mountains full of rice but yes as he said the salads, the fluids play a very important role because they bulk up in the body swell up and give you a good satiety plus if you deliberately make it a point that every meal has to have

[00:42:21] good protein be it my sprouts or my chach or a cup of dahi or a dal or eggs if I'm eating or chicken or fish whatever so I make sure that every meal has it so that my sugar spikes are not

[00:42:33] very high and my satiety is really good and which is doable generally formula of a burger is carbs protein carbs but in India mech, aloo, tiki, burgers, carbs and carbs and unhealthy fat as well and the point about Japan is actually quite fascinating the bento box

[00:42:55] Japanese high school kids by the time they graduate from school they need to learn to cook four standard Japanese dishes so think about that and if you teach people how to cook I think more than anything else it's going to make them conscious about

[00:43:11] what is healthy and what is not and also what goes into their food it's not as simple as just opening a packet and eating you'll know that aloo is the main reason for this and soup for our households are those packets which you just empty

[00:43:25] and heat it up and soup is made generally when somebody is sick in the house which is such a wrong concept but I mean I don't think a majority of people especially people are age actually I mean are starting to look at food like that

[00:43:41] but haven't all this while because I mean I think we're more or less used to having food on our plates directly without really understanding how each one of these things were made or what do each one of them contain so I want to ask all of us actually

[00:43:57] when you look at a food of plate what is it that you see do you see the nutrients that are in each part of your plate or how should one ideally be looking at their food see look at food as colour so the more colourful your food

[00:44:13] is the more nutrients it has and divide your plate into four so half of it should be raw fruits and vegetables which can either be with the same meal or it can be spaced out as a snack and the remaining half is 1 fourth carbs which is your

[00:44:29] meat, rice, bread, pasta whatever and the remaining 1 fourth is your protein which could be your dal or legumes or chicken, fish eggs etc and a small serving of dairy by the side every time we fill a plate if we just

[00:44:43] keep it in our mind that let me divide it into four so I can never go wrong is it actually that easy I'll add a few other things I think that is probably the absolute basic if you know those four things actually

[00:44:55] by the way I think that probably fixes that a few other things for young people particularly also sort of rate the things on your plate by convenience people really really underestimate this meaning that you've got to hit the sweet spot of can I make this remember

[00:45:11] that anything you order out has at least 2-3 times as many calories as the same dish that you make at home because a restaurant version of a dish is delicious because it has just a lot of fat so that it thinks that it is literally swimming in oil

[00:45:27] you just simply don't realize how much even if it's not visible they will emulsify so that you don't see it at all but it will taste super delicious because it has got so much fat so you've got to be able to balance

[00:45:39] and you've got to be able to look at this plate and say yeah I can sustainably make this I can sustain this habit economically and in a convenience way and appropriately as necessary I should be able to prep store stuff in the fridge

[00:45:51] not believe in all this nonsense about freezer when necessary use the microwave when necessary but if it helps me eat whatever that first part which is that 4 things then I should use all the other tools of convenience at my hand to make that happen

[00:46:03] short of going to a restaurant and eating ordering, eating, opening a packet and eating right so that I think is an important element right see it has to be sustainably see everyone likes an absolutely brilliantly, healthily cooked thali or a meal

[00:46:17] but it takes a lot of effort to make it right so like if you're living alone or a young person not living with your parents and all that so that becomes an important element I have a question for you Chris you just spoke about how many times

[00:46:29] when we order food from outside the biggest the aspect of the appeal is the fact that it's swimming in oil there is still a large perception where people believe that no but healthy food cannot taste as good at the ending of the day I think there is yes

[00:46:45] that definitely is an issue let's also I think we also have to accept the harsh truth that if it's genuinely healthy it is not going to taste like your butter chicken from the restaurant it's just not going to I think it's a psychological thing

[00:46:59] in many cases you can build up sort of this thing by eating healthily and the fact that it makes you feel good, it makes you feel light you don't get all the other problems associated with eating ultra fatty ultra heavy meal there's a second aspect also

[00:47:13] which is that you also have to remember that the public perception and demand for healthier food will also in the short term result in restaurants and the food industry in general using marketing tricks to fool you without actually meaningfully making changes

[00:47:31] you have to be aware of that right so this is the whole our Gulab Jamuns are made from Jaggery it makes no difference okay our desserts are made with honey and ghee and A2 gau ghee and all of that everything has changed okay

[00:47:47] so don't think that there is no such thing as a healthy dessert unless it's a fruit okay so other than that all desserts are desserts even their moderation like one banana probably not bad but a lot of bananas exactly, so for example we literally people saying

[00:48:05] we use no refined oil we only use cold pressed oil is saying nothing about the amount of fat in the food in all likelihood what's going to happen really cold pressed oils when you deep fry and heat you end up losing whatever little benefits you had in them

[00:48:21] that's the reason why we use refined oil for high temperature uses and so on right, so the whole point is that you need to overall reduce not worry about so the problem is that people again want to go after the easy fix

[00:48:31] cold pressed oil is the easy fix right or I will switch away no sugar I will add jaggery and honey you know the number of people who believe that they can give their diabetic parents because it's not sugar because it's natural sugar it's crazy scary does that happen

[00:48:45] doc yes yes many a times Guju families they are so convinced that you know the jaggery in the dal will not definitely contribute to their sorry to be very you know but it's so difficult to convince them and tell them that you know you're already eating

[00:49:01] a meal why do you want to further add to the carbohydrate and I see this a lot more because people my generation do not think about food like that they just sort of accept what has been going on in their family for years so critically thinking about food

[00:49:19] it's not like we have all the time in the world to think about what really is in our food and so we go by what our parents have told us and have believed and at the end of the day they turn out fine is what we look at

[00:49:33] and it is all the time we are talking of food when you have somebody over or you going out for you know you want to sit in a cafe and have a meeting you don't go sit by sit by the pool and you know have a meeting

[00:49:45] so every time we Indians are on only talking about food and since now people don't want to cook so they order so it's very convenient so everything rotates around food for us which is not the case in the western countries and also I think you know

[00:50:01] part of the reason why I often sometimes focus on when I teach kids and so on when I talk about food itself generally food and cooking is that I largely kind of say that look think about the history of mankind and how we evolved and you would find

[00:50:17] that the large bulk of our evolution was when we were hunter gatherers agriculture is only 10,000 years old if you are hunter gatherer in the colder latitudes your diet is pretty much entirely beat at least that's how humans were

[00:50:29] and so that is why we are now at a point where actually you can technically be healthy but you can eat multiple kinds of diets but because human beings have eaten all kinds of diets but with the exception of the modern ultra processed high calorie low fiber

[00:50:43] high fat kind of diet which never existed in the past that's the one diet none of us can deal with so that's one so in general what happens is that during the hunter gatherer period in general the reason why intermittent fasting sometimes works is because

[00:50:57] we are largely naturally evolved to not eat for long periods and when you eat you guard yourself our entire sensory apparatus our brain, our hypothalamus our tongue, our nose and everything else is signaling and say oh this is high fat why do we have taste buds?

[00:51:13] our taste buds are to detect sodium which is salt, are to detect sugars glucose, fructose and other things are to detect fats are to detect glutamates all of these essentially are telling you eat more of this, eat more of this eat as much as you can

[00:51:29] become fat it is actually a good thing for a hunter gatherer because you might not get it for some time sometimes they might have to hibernate months so the problem is that that entire environment is what our bodies are designed for

[00:51:41] and in such a short amount of time we've moved to a hyper palatable calories being super cheap kind of environment and in a country like India that changes happened in a generation so my parents generation didn't have 20 varieties of chips chips to buy, okay.

[00:51:59] and then you sit down no? when you eat a heavy meal you sit for longer so food ferments in the stomach you feel even more bloated or you like to take a good afternoon nap after your heavy lunch I mean as they say you're supposed to

[00:52:11] at least at dinner you're supposed to few hours after dinner you're not supposed to sleep but people literally will eat a late night heavy snack tub of ice cream and then go to sleep so what I can gather from our conversation that we've had till now is

[00:52:23] number one foods not certain foods I would say but certain kinds of processes are definitely worth avoiding as much as possible like your highly processed carbs and fats and sugary stuff sugary drinks but even then they're not the villains of the puzzle right it's all about

[00:52:43] how you broach that thing if you're having it once every six months or a month it might not be as bad for you right correct me if I'm wrong how do you come to that number as in this is how many times I can have it

[00:53:01] and is there a number first of all yeah or is it just a trial and error I think it's a personal question for Anjali because she wants that number basically your body can handle some amount of toxins anything which is synthetic is a toxin

[00:53:15] for the liver and the kidney now when you overdo it like you have a packaged soup everything in the due course of the day everything which has some of the other amount of additives, colours, preservatives so your body reaches that threshold of toxins

[00:53:31] now when you do it infrequently your body is able to manage those toxins and also the cooking method we've not touched upon it we have celebrities coming and advertising on you know air fryers and artificial sweeteners these are all synthetic air fryers are one of the greatest feeders

[00:53:49] for the oncology or the cancer speciality because you know the composition of the food undergoes a lot of change you have something which is called advanced glycation and products so this leads to quick aging, quick onset of diabetes, number one problem of cardiac issues

[00:54:07] Chris you had a video about air fryers right so I think see air fryers in general part of what the doctors are speaking about is the fact that if you're eating air fried food three times a day it's quite terrible for you and you shouldn't right

[00:54:21] I think the distinction was around saying that if you're someone who like is making one air fried potato chips sorry you know french fries once a week or something at that point you can actually say it's a benefit because deep frying is actually going to add more oil

[00:54:33] so I think what needs to be done is to understand how a particular cooking method or if it's an ingredient what does it contain, how does it work what does it do to my body and then decide if you want to make peace with

[00:54:47] okay this is what it will do but I think my body can manage it this one time and so this is not how many times I should be doing it eventually Yes exactly and while it might seem like a lot right you have to remember that

[00:55:01] unfortunately another hard truth is that there's a certain level of deliciousness that comes in only at high temperature but it comes at a cost as the doctor says yeah your kidney and liver will deal with it in moderation but the problem again

[00:55:15] is that it's really impossible to say what may be moderation for someone may not be moderation for some because we're all genetically very very different So how do we know what your level is because we need to find a balance between enjoying all of these things

[00:55:29] and also being chill about our food and not be really you know hyper kiharek cheesum calories measure kar ke kharao so what's that you know how do you find for yourself let's not ask for a ballpark figure I wish I could give you some new age

[00:55:43] new age sort of vooboo advice like listen to your body and all of that but honestly I let the doctor talk she did speak about the fact that it is important to get tested exactly You listen to your body but your body speaks

[00:55:53] a different language so you go to people who understand that language yes who can interpret that yes exactly so you go to doctor pray So to give a precise number your body can actually handle 1500 kilo joules of AGE now that's a very scientific jargon

[00:56:09] and to just give you a context to it if you eat one tandoori chicken this is 300 kilo joules see if you had an observation in the first wave of covid we had all elderly who were impacted because age related immunity compromise was there

[00:56:23] second wave we had all the youngsters eating at home home cooked food which was like munkidal ka halwa so many people became bakers at home and everybody was making dahi ballas and you know and the detail of what all items went up it was

[00:56:39] basically ready to eat noodles packet of chips cold drinks so you made that impact on your health and you so your body indicates it's not that you know when you add an inch on your waist you don't know Since we're talking about moderation

[00:56:53] and we've discussed moderation and also you know just like I think somewhere accepting the fact that processed food also has made its place in our everyday lives and it's not going to leave anytime soon but I have a question what do you guys think about the concept of

[00:57:09] cheat days or cheat meals Before Chris and Priyanka can you know expand upon it I would say that how I look at it is it's again assigning virtues and values to food items right so that would again be the whole just starting we had talked about alarmism

[00:57:27] I think a lot of that comes from that right you guys can So one is that I'll answer from a science standpoint and then Dr. Priyanka can sort of address the clinical medical side of it so the behavior science of this is that

[00:57:39] not everyone is the same when it comes to how you think about your reward in your gratification system like you do know in society that some people are actually more susceptible to say becoming an alcoholic and purely psychologically speaking right so people come in a spectrum so I

[00:57:57] would actually say the problem is that a cheat day is not a universal solution to this problem just like anything else right so what happens is that for some people they'll end up just going berserk on that cheat day your

[00:58:09] cells and all the rest of your body functions as if it was any other day right and if you assault it on that day it's gonna have consequences right so every time you eat there are consequences unfortunately that's the truth right

[00:58:19] so but the point is it's really about are you a person who can delay gratification and still be reasonably sane about what you eat of that cheat day right versus someone who recognizes that no I don't think I can sort of do that I would rather sort of

[00:58:35] look at my entire day look at my meals and then have small pieces of things that I enjoy as part of otherwise healthy meal may be a better strategy for some people like dividing that unhealthiness over little time than just picking one whole day

[00:58:51] where you fill it with unhealthy items exactly yeah full instead of a full brownie and so on you're gonna have like a small quarter portion maybe along with your lunch or something like that right okay so I would like to address the question that you know we always

[00:59:05] correlate food as a reward mechanism which is wrong if your exams are over you get an ice cream or if you've done well you know we go out for a pizza outing or whatever so that's the wrong notion we as parents are putting into our children's mind

[00:59:19] so food should never be a reward mechanism and as a mother of two boys one teenager and one getting into the teenage it's very difficult to tell them that we have one day as the cheat day and there are

[00:59:31] days when the tiffin box just comes back like that so to avoid that you know there are ways as a mother I cheat the children by putting maybe one Oreo biscuit with a bunch of nuts together with a lot of fruits if I have to pack

[00:59:45] french fries I would add a little bit of cucumber sticks, carrot sticks and you know make a hunker dip by the side so the look and feel looks nice but at the same time the child is not really eating what is so unhealthy

[00:59:59] so this is the cheat from a mother's side but it is not really making the child feel that you know they are deprived of something since we're talking about like these different sleep cycles we discussed a while back and just the kind of lifestyle that a young person

[01:00:15] in our country currently leads is I would say different than what it was the generation before us we have definitely started staying up much later the timings that we pick to eat food have also changed so should we also be changing what we eat in those timings

[01:00:33] since now it is pretty much there's very little we can do to change our lifestyle of course we can we can start sleeping early but sometimes the work schedule is such that we cannot my breakfast is my family's lunch yeah so is changing

[01:00:49] our food to fit our lifestyle a good approach or should it always be the other way around you have to be flexible number one but your body has not changed though the generations and the sleep cycle has changed still morning 6am to 8am is your cortisol release

[01:01:05] in the body so if you're sleeping you are making more fat it's a fat forming hormone and if you do some kind of activity you get the maximum benefit because endorphin levels are high now these jargons are regular teenager or a college going girl

[01:01:21] or a boy would not understand they're happy being up till 12 midnight trying to munch on something so to some extent if we can bring the sleep cycle as close to 10 to 6 timings maybe half an hour here and there or 1 hour here and there

[01:01:37] and if they have to munch on the first thing should be hydration so it could be neembu pani, nariel pani milk, some fresh homemade soup or infused water so that most of the times this hydration is not confused to be hunger and then things like

[01:01:53] a handful of nuts, chickies or you could have some makhanas you could have a seed mix you could have some fruit to munch on which is just kept on the dining table right there instead of a packet of cookies or chocolates readily available for the child

[01:02:07] never stock a lot of unhealthy food your fridge should never be filled with a lot of ice creams because then we will all reach out to it I sincerely wish, I know it's probably a huge drain of your productive time but I do wish more

[01:02:21] qualified doctors such as yourself actually become social media influencers genuinely hope, I think more than anything else I think there's an onus on the social media platforms themselves to amplify you that's the problem right you shouldn't have to work hard and do what influencers do to gain followers

[01:02:37] in the sense that scientifically verifiable health information should not have to compete with people saying random nonsense right in an ideal world and I will only add one last thing to what Dr. Prayanka said which is to all young people is to learn to cook

[01:02:55] it's the one single skill if it's correlated with long term good health it's your ability to cook food because home cooked food no matter how terrible you are is going to be orders of magnitude healthier than whatever it is you order in any restaurant

[01:03:11] even the greatest health food restaurant ultimately will have the commercial pressure to deliver food that is delicious and delicious food unfortunately is just high fat that's high salt it's just the way it is I'll just say learn to cook interesting nice

[01:03:27] I mostly call up my mother for recipes but I also have a fair share of Instagram recipes that I try on every once in a while so is Instagram a good place to learn cooking or should I always be looking somewhere else

[01:03:41] dude his Instagram is I would say so in fact pardon my, so in fact one of the premise of my book Masala Lab was essentially no recipes only algorithms right so rather than sit and figure out recipes a dal basically is a template there is a base

[01:03:59] fat and some spices there's some flavouring and then you add the cooked dal garnishes and salt and squeeze acid right so this template you can use to make sambar you can use to make gujrati dal you can use to make Bengali dal by just altering the fat

[01:04:13] altering the spices altering the kind of dal you use so I think in general I think it's always better to learn the broader heuristics of dishes rather than individual dishes and then you experiment in your kitchen based on what you have otherwise

[01:04:25] other thing that happens so you'll find a recipe and then you will go buy 10 spice dabbas all of which you're rotting in your fridge because you'll use a tiny amount yeah and so what I think you should have the mental muscle to say

[01:04:39] whatever is in my fridge fresh ingredients that I can use right now that's what I bake otherwise you'll go buy something you'll waste it and that's not really great either so I think from a sustainability standpoint it's often better to remember algorithms rather than recipes

[01:04:53] and we don't need very fancy ingredients like kiwi and broccoli exactly you know a lot of tasty food can be made from the regular local stuff that's available with us we don't need our kinwas and everything on a daily basis I actually wore one of these continuous glucose

[01:05:09] monitors for about six months to kind of really understand how food affects me and so on for me I found that there's actually little difference between any of the billets kinwa and rice and wheat not much difference at all you know what made a big difference the amount

[01:05:21] that I had one chapati versus two chapatis are much bigger difference than having kinwa chapati bakwi chapati versus you know regular chapati again it may vary by person but in general I think you know people put way too much people feel like when they're spending more money

[01:05:37] they need to get that much more health that's just not how it works okay now just to conclude we have some you know rapid fire questions because these days nothing can end without a rapid fire we are going to throw some commonly heard

[01:05:53] myths and you know some understanding some things that we have heard and you guys are like the authority and you have to say whether they are true fully true not true I feel like a lot of these answers are going to be in moderation in moderation depends on

[01:06:09] the person context I think yeah that's the niche of this chat I would say Krithi do you have something in mind yeah I think every medical opinion on the internet is viable in terms of what you eat absolutely not as I said no so one is

[01:06:25] individual studies second thing is the quality of the study whether it's really been cited by others and then whether it's a meta study or not whether the study was on rats the sample size sometimes the study is not on people who are of Indian origin so so many

[01:06:37] things can make one isolated study relevant or irrelevant completely irrelevant so I don't think you should go by that at all and the problem is that sometimes how a study is reported is that the authors may have actually said something else with a ton of caveats

[01:06:51] but the headline will be this cures cancer okay it's not how it works okay I have something which has come from like personal pain point you shouldn't eat food after 6 p.m. or you shouldn't eat carbs after 6 p.m. the lesser the better and the wholesome the better

[01:07:07] okay what do you mean by wholesome wholesome as in whole grains rather than eating a meta bread try and add your proteins and fiber in the form of fruits vegetables to have a wholesome meal even if you want to have a salad for dinner

[01:07:19] I wouldn't say just have a salad with only vegetables in it you could put in some bread croutons into it you could put in some ubalava chana or rajma into it so you know make it more wholesome even broken wheat

[01:07:31] when steamed and added to a salad is very tasty or add a toast by the side you know make your dish more wholesome and but the timing timing is important because body's basal metabolic rate slows down as we you know you are arriving

[01:07:47] at your retiring time for the day so if you have to sleep by 11 o'clock 2-3 hours prior you should finish your eating so that the digestion is over by the time you hit the bed this is so much more nuanced than don't eat after 6 p.m. Anjali

[01:08:01] I have another one is there is non-vegetarian protein better than vegetarian this this you are I feel personally attacked by everyone who's asking me to chain convert to non-vegetarian not really it's not like that yeah off late we are seeing a lot of people with

[01:08:21] pea protein and you know getting the best of health I don't say turn vegan but I wouldn't say that if you are not a non-vegetarian you are missing out something major in your life I think that's the right way to look at it

[01:08:33] I think it's perfectly possible to be completely healthy on a vegetarian diet I would say as the doctor says it's a little bit trickier on a purely vegan diet in that I think you have to be privileged and rich enough to pay amount of

[01:08:49] attention to whether you are getting all of the urban city that has no you do need supplements you do need to make sure exactly B12 and all of the not just vitamin B12 just all of the amino acids and proteins but if you are vegetarian

[01:09:03] I think you can be perfectly healthy on a diet that includes dairy and in some cases I think if you consider eggs to be vegetarian which at least I do so that again you know really eggs are some of the highest quality protein out there

[01:09:15] I'm just going to cut this part and forward it to all my whatsapp groups so if you look at the international protein quality ranking right so egg is 100 and then everything else is ranked below that so that's how it works processed red meats

[01:09:27] are among the worst things you can eat this is like sausages and ham so net net I think it's really just about you can be healthy on any kind of diet so there's no such thing right so in a sense it's possible that

[01:09:41] and with a good lifestyle coverage of keeping all other parameters in mind but if you are like for example my wife is Malayali and as far as she's considered it's not a meal unless there's a piece of fish right and so in some sense yeah from a convenience

[01:09:55] standpoint it takes away the worry about whether you're getting enough protein whereas a vegetarian has to consciously make sure yes am I getting enough dal am I getting enough of that am I also making sure that I'm augmenting it with some dairy

[01:10:07] animal protein so it's going to have all of the essential amino acids so there's a little bit of that but otherwise I think if you're mindful about what you eat I think you know it doesn't really make a difference and as I said Indians, vegetarian

[01:10:19] Indian cuisine is one of the great marvels of the world because it is its own thing meaning that these are not vegetarian versions of non-veg dishes as it is in the rest of the world it's a completely uniquely rich vegetarian exactly vegetarian cuisine that like for example

[01:10:33] using paneer or using many of these other ingredients now you can actually have a pretty rich perfectly balanced protein rich diet protein rich diet and also being mindful about things like you know 70% of the calories in paneer come from fat not from

[01:10:45] protein so you have to be mindful of some of these things so you have to balance it right you can just say oh paneer is 100% all the calories aren't the same they're not the same right but on the other hand if you're eating

[01:10:55] like fish or chicken it's reasonably pretty much entirely protein right dal is like 50% carbohydrates but resist really good resistance touch right but you have to be mindful of you know those kinds of things you should be able to look at your plate and recognize

[01:11:09] what is exactly one of these and know what contains what yes and that will come from cooking yes that'll come from actually cooking yes cooking and your protein will be fully utilized if you are doing some muscle strengthening shudha namaskar is one of the very good exercise yes

[01:11:25] interesting it's so cool that we started from food and then now we are talking about health essentially and health and lifestyle and culture all of these things are so connected nice interesting thanks a lot thanks a lot if you guys have any parting words for us for our

[01:11:41] listeners I mean I've already said it I think learn to cook pay attention to where your food comes from right understand understand what does what where things come from and whether they're what the macronutrient balance is make sure that you exercise remember that exercise alone

[01:11:59] is not gonna if weight loss is your goal exercise alone is not going to cut it you have to also reduce the amount of food you eat and also don't overthink it it's easier to just the safest thing to do is often eat what your grandparents

[01:12:11] eat but also eat them in far more moderation than they did eat a wide variety of things don't believe in the idea of superfoods one single magic ingredient one single amazing foreign ingredient k.l and broccoli and quinoa

[01:12:25] and asai berries and so on so you know skip all of that you don't so you can only eat as healthy as convenient as food is for you to cook and bake right if it's inconvenient and expensive you would never be able to meet your goals

[01:12:37] so that's all I have to say your food has to give you a positive mindset that's very important so have a positive association with your food not a reward mechanism and choose things which you know your gut actually tells you are good for you so eat right

[01:12:53] to stay bright alright thank you thank you thanks a lot for this chat alright yeah that is great advice thanks krithi thank you for joining us yes so Anjali let us start with what do you think okay let's start with right after this what are you gonna have

[01:13:13] and more importantly what are you gonna not have for your lunch asai's dinner is a bit out of control today because this is my one day where I'm going out but I think it I'm pretty sure that the next time that I'm looking at a plate of food

[01:13:29] it might not be the healthiest mom please it might not be the healthiest but I am pretty sure I'll be more mindful of what is on it and what is in it yes interesting you know with me it's such a weird thing because you and krithi

[01:13:47] you guys over work me and work me so much I didn't get time to eat so I thought this is our boss saying I thought I'll order it and with every passing minute of the conversation I'm like no no let's cook

[01:14:05] when krithi was like you know you should cook I was like oh man why did you save this but I think I really liked the little bit of thinking that this episode got us into where krithi actually talked about the importance of

[01:14:23] something as basic as cooking your own food yeah and which is a little overlooked and I also I mean he has bought it up and emphasised it but I feel that it is whenever you're building a diet it's very important to make sure

[01:14:39] that it's sustainable it is something that you can continue to do otherwise fat diets can be done for some time but of course they are not what krithi has told us already I really like that that I talked about the importance of cooking because you know it wasn't

[01:14:55] a very general talk of this should be done or not which is a lot I am really confused at this point that don't do this but the whole point about critical thinking the whole point when krith mentioned that but it worked for me is the worst excuse ever

[01:15:15] because that's so anti science correct and when then Priyanka mentioned that all of these diets and all we don't experiment on the bodies of people we are not going to experiment on our body go to a professional she actually talked about the importance of screening in time

[01:15:41] and let them talk about your body and also what will work for your body also like the fact that we discussed that we keep saying listen to our bodies listen to our bodies all of that but actually our bodies speak a different language

[01:15:57] so we can listen but we don't understand what is the use of listening so that's why people like krish people like Priyanka and all other people who are doing great work in the streams of nutrition and health we should like make them superstars make them social media stars

[01:16:13] so that they can tell us what is happening with our bodies and that's I think our attempt as well with this episode correct but overall these are some conclusion types to chill a little yes after so much obsession in your food it's over 100 grams 20 grams protein

[01:16:37] is not going to make that big a difference and I think that is the best way to think about nutrition in general because as krish had said it's not a settled science so it will be very hard for there to be like a

[01:16:51] authority and at least a number can't be put on anything when it comes to nutrition so it's your body and it's a relationship between your body and your food which I think we will explore slowly but again there's nothing to worry about it's all going to be

[01:17:07] okay Nikhla. Again I want to thank our guests krish and Dr Priyanka and Krithi for sharing their time with us this was the big story we are your hosts Anjali and Pratik and we will see you in the next episode before leaving, I have a complaint with you

[01:17:23] friends everybody who is listening to this podcast you guys are not commenting you guys are not following us on Spotify and Youtube and all the other places. We are talking so much that our listeners are a little upgraded what is upgraded Anjali? that. that.

[01:17:47] Follow us guys in the comments and tell us what should be the questions for our guests in our next episode what myths and ideas did you have about food that probably got changed during the course of this episode and just have a connection

[01:18:01] with us dude because we are your two guests and we would love to check out what you have for us. Thank you and we will see you in the next one. The big story is a quint orational podcast executive produced by Ritu Kapoor and Shreevalya. This episode was

[01:18:15] hosted and produced by Anjali Palode and Pratik Lidu edited by Pratik Lidu. The background music is from BMG production and a special thanks to our guests Krishashok, Dr Priyanka and Krithi Thank you.