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Q&A with Alamelu Vairavan of Curry On Wheels

12/27/2011

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Ms. Alamelu Vairavan from Milwaukee, Wisconsin teaches people how to cook South Indian food, which she praises for its healthy qualities. She has a show on PBS in Wisconsinand also a cookbook available on Amazon.com titled  "Healthy South Indian Cooking." She also runs a website at CurryOnWheels.com.

We may not see eye to eye -- for example she claims ghee is not as healthy --  but for the most part we do, for example on the emphasis of spices and lentils. I hope you the reader get yet another perspective (see the ones I did with Dr. Bharat Aggarwal and Raj Ganpath) on healthy Indian diets and can decide for yourself. 

Ms. Vairavan, first question: what influences led you to seeing Indian food as being potentially healthy? 

Basically:
• South Indian cooking uses a minimum amount of light cooking oil, not the clarified butter (ghee) and heavy cream used in the kitchen of many Indian restaurants.
• Vegetables are not boiled or steamed. Vegetables are cooked fresh and are enhanced with spices. Spices have intrinsic health benefits as Dr. Aggarwal’s book, “Healing Spices”  suggests. Spices aid digestion and make the food aromatic and flavorful. So, one can consume more vegetables and cut down on red meats.
• Salt can be reduced or eliminated entirely, substituting cumin, ginger, garlic, and other spices.
• Indian cooking especially South Indian cooking uses a lot of legumes (lentils, beans and peas) which are high in protein and fiber. Lentils are easily digested and are lower in fat.
• South Indian diet can also be a vegetarian diet and also a gluten-free diet because wheat, oats and barley are not used as much. One can also adapt South Indian diet to a vegan diet by simply omitting animal protein like milk, cream, yogurt, butter etc.
• South Indian cooking is light, making vegetables more appealing and vegetables play a dominant role in every meal. 
• The foods cooked and served with different flavors help you feel satisfied with even with a small consumption of food.
• A small amount of rice along with the abundant variety of vegetable dishes and 2 to 4 oz. lean meat will give you a hearty satisfying, healthful meal. 



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Review of our book "The Healthy Indian Diet"

12/22/2011

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I recently learned that our book was well reviewed in the Blogosphere by Milehimama. Here's the most telling line in terms of framing what our book is: "I thought this was a cookbook, but it’s much more than that.  Instead, it’s a book about how diet affects health." 

Here's another useful excerpt: 

"What really stood out for me in this book were the practical helps.  This is a book about real food for real people.  It’s not a theoretical book and it’s not a book asking Americans to suddenly become model eaters by sheer willpower alone, and even advises against a “cold turkey” approach to dietary change.  He includes “Useful Philosophies” which include:

Perfection is the enemy of good
Moderation in all things
Focus on changing your environment, not your behavior

These are things I’ve written about here, because they are my “useful philosophies” too.

Dr. Patel goes on to give a handy list of Basic Principles of the Indian Diet, which are nine things to keep in mind.  The recommendations will be familiar to any in the NT crowd- eat plant foods.  Avoid hydrogenated oils.  Use ghee or coconut oil.  Get rid of refined grains.  Eat fermented foods regularly."


I liked how she compared our book to some other famous titles in the health section such as "Food as Medicine" and "Eating Well for Optimum Health." In case you couldn't open the link above, here is the URL: 
http://www.milehimama.com/reviews/the-healthy-indian-diet/   
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Why We Were Wrong About Ghee

12/19/2011

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I just learned that my piece on ghee is as of now the most popular article on IndiaWest, California's largest circulation paper for the South Asian-American community. I've reprinted it here in its entirety.   

Growing up, I thought that ghee was dangerous. Uncles and aunties would say, "We’re cutting back on ghee," or, "We don't use that stuff anymore, it’s so bad for you." I wondered why ghee got such a bad rap, and soon I learned everyone's doctors had been urging them to drop ghee because something called saturated fats – which ghee has in abundance – causes heart attacks. 

'Desis,' it turned out, were susceptible to heart attacks. Someone from our community had a heart attack almost every month, or so it seemed then, and sometimes an uncle we knew would die from it. So finding what caused heart attacks was a really big deal. Now fast forward to today, and here's a new thought. What if we were wrong about ghee? What if eating ghee, or using ghee to cook food, never caused heart attacks?

Research in the past decade strongly suggests that ghee was not the problem. If we were wrong about ghee, we were not alone. At the same time Indian-Americans were dropping ghee, Americans were dropping butter (from which ghee is made) for margarine, a processed oil-and-milk product. The replacement of butter, which had been eaten traditionally throughout America's history, was part of the bigger phenomenon of Americans adopting a low-fat diet. 



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A doctor restores her health with a natural diet

12/12/2011

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Dr. Terry Wahls, a physician at the University of Iowa, developed a devastating disease of the brain and nerves called multiple sclerosis. She became so weak she had to use a wheelchair to get around. Just as you and I would do, she took the conventional route for treating her M.S., and because of her medical background and connections she was up to date on the latest therapies. 

But she didn't find an effective remedy. She was getting worse. So she changed things, primarily her diet as she explains in this TED video. And it's primarily through a natural diet based mostly on plants that she got on the road to good health. 
What I found interesting is that like many, Dr. Wahls sought to get all her nutrition (vitamins, minerals and other antioxidants) through pills and supplements. But this didn't work.  

What Dr. Wahls eventually realized was that our cells, and their mitochondria (the energy factories of cells), could get much more nutrition from a diet of mostly plants and organic-fed meat. This is because of synergy -- interactions between vitamins, minerals and other things like fiber w
e know exist in our food and those molecules for which we have yet to discover what they do. This synergy is missing in a pill. And that's why we should aim to get nutrition from food, not from supplements we buy at a store. 

On her diet of "9 cups of vegetables and berries," Dr. Wahls restored her health, getting back on her feet and regaining the strength to practice and speak to audiences. While she isn't on a healthy Indian diet, I believe it's important for you to see how powerful a natural, mostly-plant diet is in restoring good health.   

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Our 1st winner!

12/1/2011

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Congratulations to the winner of our 1st The Healthy Indian Diet drawing, Sameer from Austin, Texas! Stay tuned, there are 4 drawings left. Good luck! 
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