Stress and food habits leading to Heart ailments & Diabites: Manmohan Singh had his arteries bypassed , a procedure that increasing numbers of Indians are having. A study of 20,000 Indian patients and found that 60 per cent of the worlds' heart disease patients are in India, which has 15 per cent of the world's population.
This number is surprising because reports of obesity and heart disease focus on 'fat Americans and their food.' What could account for Indians being so susceptible -- even more than the burger-and-fries-eating Americans?Four things: diet, culture, stress and lack of fitness. Indian food is assumed to be strongly vegetarian, but it is actually lacking in vegetables. Our diet is centred around wheat, in the north, and rice, in the south. The second most important element is daal in its various forms. By weight, vegetables are not consumed much. You could have an entire South Indian vegetarian meal without encountering a vegetable. The most important vegetable is the starchy aloo. Greens are not cooked flash-fried in the healthy manner of the Chinese, but boiled or fried till much of the nutrient value is killed. Many indians who in the last few decades have moved from an agrarian life to an urban onebut still have retained their diet and if anything made it richer, but their bodies do not work as much. This transition from a physical life to a sedentary one has made them vulnerable and has lead to the increase in diabetes as well, Bombay's junk food was invented in the 19th century to service Gujarati traders leaving Fort's business district late in the evening after a long day. Pao bhaji, mashed leftover vegetables in a tomato gravy served with shallow-fried buns of bread, was one such invention. The most popular snack in Bombay is vada pao, which has a batter-fried potato ball stuck in a bun. The bun -- yeast bread -- is not native to India and gets its name pao from the Portuguese who brought it in the 16th century. Bal Thackeray encouraged Bombay's unemployed Marathi boys to set up vada pao stalls in the 60s, which they did and still do.The travelling chef and TV star Anthony Bourdain called vada pao the best Indian thing he had ever eaten, but it is heart attack food.
Indians do not have a drink with their meals. We drink before and then stagger to the table. As is the case in societies of scarcity, rich food is considered good -- and ghee is a sacred word in all Indian languages. There is no escape from fat. In India, advertising for healthy eating also shows food deep fried, but in lower-cholesterol oil.
The insistence by family - 'thoda aur le lo' -- at the table is part of our culture of hospitality. Middle class Indians, even families that earn Rs10,000 a month, will have servants. Work that the European and American does, the Indian does not want to do: cooking, cleaning, washing up.Painting the house, changing tyres, tinkering in the garage, moving things around, getting a cup of tea at the office, these are things the Indian gets someone else to do for him.
if we dont change out way of living and adopt a healthy and alternate life style it will be tuff to take on challenges of the 21st century where in India will take a real leading part.
