Low-fat or low-carb or low gi?? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

The jury is still out about the best diet for weight loss. Some research favours a low carb approach, some a low GI approach and some a low fat approach. Some research says that it doesn't make any difference what you eat as long as you watch your calories.

So, to the question of what really works for weight loss, there is no definitive answer yet and there might not be for a really long time.

But if you take a holistic approach and try and extract some universal principles from what all of these guys (not counting fringe elements like Dr. Atkins) are saying, it really boils down to this.

1. Don't eat any food that is liable to push up your blood sugar very quickly
2. Don't eat too much, but for god's sake, don't starve. 
3. Don't eat a lot of fat and eat absolutely no transfats (that's dalda. Dalda is horrible and yucky. Avoid.)
4. Don't eat a lot of red meat
5. Don't eat white processed foods (white bread, white rice, rotis made of maida, french fries, sugar)
6. Drink no sugary beverages including fruit juice (eat fruit instead)
7. Eat a lot of fiber
8. Eat a lot of vegetables

The first principle is the most important. Especially if you have diabetes, are obese or have PCOS. When your blood sugar goes up rapidly, your insulin levels shoot up to deal with that sugar. High insulin levels mean that you store fat like crazy. Also when your blood sugar goes up really high, it rebounds and then goes really low, making you awfully hungry and making you want to eat a lot of food. So you eat a lot of food and guess what happens? Blood sugar shoots up.

That is a vicious cycle that is easy to break. There are several ways to make sure your blood sugar never goes up that high.

1. Eat the same food. But break it up into smaller meals. Less of the same food means lower blood sugar levels.
2. Eat the same food. But add lots of fiber to it. So use brown rice instead of white rice. Use whole wheat or mixed grains instead of white flour. Use oat bran instead of oats and so on.
3. Replace high glycemic index foods with low glycemic index foods. Eat pasta instead of rice. Eat oats instead of wheat. (High glycemic index foods mean foods which push up your blood sugar really fast. For a good explanation of the terms glycemic index and glycemic load go to http://www.mendosa.com/gi.htm)
4. Eat the same food. But reduce the quantity of that food and add tons of vegetables.

The best approach is just using common sense and mixing up all of the above strategies. Here are some examples:

• If you're eating a "bad" food like cake, eat very little of it. And then after a couple of hours eat very little of it again.
• If you're craving white rice, use half the amount of rice you usually eat and replace the remaining half with vegetables or dal.
• If you are dying for a filling carbohydrate rich meal, eat something made of besan (chickpea flour) or eat pasta instead of rice.

This is the essence of any good weight loss plan. As for fat, should you eat low fat or should you eat as much fat as you like? The answer is eat as much fat as is good for you. You don't have to deprive yourself, but your food should not be swimming in oil. Also, try to get more fat from within natural foods instead of adding fat to foods. That means peanuts instead of peanut oil and grilled chicken instead of fried chicken ( if you eat meat).

This blog is an attempt to create a database of recipes that stay true to these principles. I am a South Indian and although I eat non-vegetarian food, I like vegetarian food much more. So, my recipes will mostly be Indian and vegetarian. They will also definitely be healthy, low-fat and low glycemic index.

So, bon appetit and good health to all of you. If you try something here, please let me know how it worked out :).

Am I eating too many carbs? High Carb foods and their carb values

This post is both about providing information and exploding a few myths. If you're pre-diabetic, or diabetic, or have PCOS or just want to control your carbs, you really need to know how many carbs you're actually eating.

Disclaimer: This post focuses only on carbs not on calories. All other principles like eating enough protein and going easy on the fat still apply.

For someone with diabetes, doctors recommend between 35-60 gms of carbs in any meal and overall about 180-200 a day counting snacks and things like that. IMHO, 200 gms a day is way too much and I would suggest keeping it under 150 gms, but you can do your research and make up your mind.

A typical meal. Good or bad? Let's check.

Let's say you have 2 dosas for breakfast with chutney, a typical serving of rice with light alu curry and a bowl of dal, 1 cup of tea with 2 Mcvities digestive biscuits, and 3 rotis with another simple vegetable across the day and perhaps you threw in an apple somewhere in the middle...what does this actually look like? Do you know whether or not you've had what you'd call a "healthy" meal?

• Breakfast (2 dosas + chutney) - 60 to 65 gms of carbs
• Post-breakfast apple - 21 gms
• Lunch (Rice+Alu curry + Dal) - roughly 100 gms of carbs
• Tea - (Digestive biscuits +tea) - roughly 20 gms of carbs
• Dinner (3 rotis + Sabzi) - 50 gms

That's 251 gms of carbs in all. NOT GOOD! And this is your basic ghar ka khana. You haven't even eaten any of the bad stuff yet.

How can you redo this day so your carbs are better but you don't feel the pinch?

You don't have to be scientific and calculate all day, but you have to be mindful. You can eat high-carb food, but do you want to eat all three high carb items in the same meal? Why not spread it out instead? Eat the rotis with the dal and the rice with the lauki and 1 dosa with a boiled egg instead of 2 dosas and so on.

And if god forbid, you gorged on that chocolate cake or boondi laddu, you know you shouldn't be eating rice for dinner. Eat paneer salad instead with one roti instead. It's the same thinking as counting calories, but for someone who has trouble with insulin, this is an even more critical activity.

If you look at the table below, I've suggested a few substitutions. Option 3 gave you  100gms of carbs less and most likely fewer calories as well.

But how will I know how many carbs I'm eating?

I've found it really challenging to find the carb values for Indian foods. They're available on most calorie counting apps, but they can be wildly inaccurate, so taking some of the values available online and using research, good sense, and the support of my calculator, I've compiled a list of high-carb foods with typical serving sizes and carb values. Are these 100% accurate? I don't know, unless I come to your house and measure the exact recipe you used :). That said, this is about as close to accurate as you'll likely find on the internet. That said, if you find inaccuracies, I will be very grateful and will fix them ASAP.

So here's the table and trust me this took all day to research and compile. I hope you find it useful.

Low GI - Oats Soya porridge

Sorry about the long absence. I'm back with a recipe that is true to the principles of this blog. It's quick and easy, nutritious, vegetarian, and low-glycemic index.

By now all of us have heard about oats and have been swamped by the marketing campaigns that tell us it will solve everything from heart disease to falling hair. Now, here's a cautionary note. The instant oats that come in the little packages are not really good for you. Sure, they give you some good beta-glucan fiber, but that's going to work for you more in the long term. In the short term, the GI of instant oats is very high, so it'll push your blood sugar up very quickly. 

I'm not saying you should not eat them, but you could find ways to bring down the GI, so you can get the advantages of the good fiber without the blood sugar hit.

Let's look at the numbers (as always with the caveat that these are approximations.). Instant oats have a GI of 66 and a glycemic load of 18 for a 250 gm serving. We want to lower the GI to below 50 and the GL to about 10. 

So here's what I did. I took half the quantity of Instant Masala oats you would typically need for two people and I substituted the other half with peanuts, soya granules, and onions. Peanuts, soya granules, and onions are all low on GI and GL, so I anticipate that we can achieve the effect we want with this substitution. Fortunately, the end result is still filling and tasty.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 packet masala oats (any flavor). Plain is fine too. Just add whatever seasoning you want.

1 medium onion chopped (you can add other vegetables like carrots, beans, and peas for more nutrition)

A handful of peanuts

A handful of soya granules (the ones that look like keema)

A teaspoon of zeera

A teaspoon of oil

2 chopped green chilis (optional)

A pinch of chili powder (optional)

1/2 a teaspoon dhaniya powder (optional)

Salt to taste

Method:

Heat the oil in a small kadai. Throw in the zeera. When the seeds start to splutter, add the peanuts and roast them. Once they're roasted, add the onions and green chilis and saute them for 2 minutes. Add all seasoning like dhania and chili powder and saute for another couple of minutes. Throw in the soya granules and saute for another two minutes. Finally add the oats and water and let the mixture boil until it is cooked. Add as much salt as you need. Garnish with coriander, if you like.

If you're starting with plain oats-which btw really makes much more sense because the masala oats cost so much more and probably have unhealthy fats - add in any seasoning you like to get the taste you want.

That's it :)

10 ways to reduce the Glycemic Index (GI) of foods

This post is in response to a comment where someone asked me how we can calculate the GI of various kinds of food. That's a good question and I wish I had a purely quantitative answer. I am afraid calculating GI is not as straightforward as counting calories. The link I'm giving below is a good place to start and has gi and gl values for many common foods, but what happens is every variable has its own effect on GI, so we cannot take this list as a bible.

http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm

Here are some simple things to keep in mind for selecting low GI foods and for lowering the GIs of high GI foods:

1. Undercook rather than overcook. If a food is pasty, it's probably high gi. This applies to pasta, rice, noodles and just about any boiled starch

2. Eat a starch cold rather than right off the stove. In fact putting something in the fridge and then letting it warm back up to room temperature is a great way to reduce GI

3. Add something acidic like lemon juice, vinegar, etc. This lowers GI

4. Pick a higher fiber option or add fiber through vegetables. Strangely enough not all high-fiber foods are low GI, because, as I said, many variables affect GI.

5. Replace some portion of a high GI cereal with a low GI cereal. For example, add whole moong dal to rice or besan to rotis.

6. Pick larger particle sizes. Daliya instead of atta, for example.

7.Add a small quantity of ghee, butter or cheese, but please don't overdo it :)

8.Avoid pasty or mashed starches.

9. Pick firm fruit rather than overripe fruit.

10. Avoid eating a lot of starch in one meal. This takes some training. You have to teach your stomach to fill up on the veggies and the dals and get used to a lower quantity of rice/roti. 150 grams of rice (which is just one tea cup full) or 2-2.5 rotis is the upper limit if you want to keep your blood sugar stable.

Note: BTW, some good news. One of the most common varieties of rice we eat in India called Sona Mahsuri is not very high GI. So as long as you limit the quantity of rice you eat at one time to about a 150 gms, you should be able to eat rice. Basmati is not too bad either, but Sona Mahsuri is better.

Low GI Jowar Vermicelli Upma

Hi,

This is the latest in my series of experiments with grains other than the wheat and rice we typically eat. I found a packet of Jowar Vermicelli at the local super market and thought it was worth a try. Now, I typically make vermicelli upma with wheat vermicelli and vegetables, so I figured the same recipe should work with a few tweaks for Jowar vermicelli. For the most part, the recipe worked just fine, except that the end result was a little stickier and didn't dry out as nicely as wheat vermicelli does, but no complaints with respect to the taste.

Here are the GI facts. 180 gms of cooked wheat vermicelli has a GL of 16 and a GI of 35-40 (unfortunately, I don't have the figures for Jowar, but I believe they may be a little higher than wheat). Those are reasonable figures, but we do want to bring it down to about 10 or 11 for it to be truly low GI. So, as usual, we use our favorite method to bring down GI and amp up nutrition. We add veggies. 120 gms of vermicelli makes about 300 gms of cooked vermicelli. That's typically enough to serve three people for breakfast. So, my guess is each serving should not have a GI greater than 10 or 11.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients for Upma:
100 gms of Jowar vermicelli or regular wheat vermicelli
Very small piece of ginger grated
One big onion chopped finely
1 medium carrot chopped into small pieces
1 small bowl chopped cabbage
1 small potato chopped into small pieces
2-3 green chilis slit length-wise
1 small tomato chopped finely
3 cups water
Oil to taste
Salt to taste

For tempering:
4-5 curry leaves

1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp dehusked black gram (urad dal)
Peanuts (optional)


Method:

Roast the vermicelli in a little oil or ghee until lightly browned.

In a non-stick wok (I recommend this as this Jowar vermicelli tends to be a little sticky), heat up some oil and toss in the mustard seeds and black gram. Fry until the black gram turns orange. Then, throw in the curry leaves. Once the leaves are fried, add the onions, green chilis and grated ginger and fry for 4-5 mins on medium heat. Then add the remaining vegetables and fry them for 4-5 mins on medium heat. Add salt to taste. Cover and cook until the vegetables are done.

Add three cups of water (you may need less water for wheat vermicelli.) and cover until the water starts to boil. Put in the roasted vermicelli and cook until the water is absorbed. Cover and cook on low flame for another 5 mins. Turn off the flame and keep the lid on for another 5-10 mins.













You can roast some peanuts in a little oil and add them to the upma, if you like.

Serve hot :). Tell me how it turned out.

Gotta Love Paneer (south indians included)

Several South Indians are not fans of Paneer, me included. No matter how I cook the damn thing, the spices never seem to penetrate its thick hide. The core is always milky white and bland. But-and there's always a but-Paneer is a very benign food from a glycemic load perspective. No definitive figures here, but I believe it has only about 10 gms of carbs in a 183 gms serving, so the glycemic load is about 7, hence this post.

I've tried Paneer in many forms and tolerated it in most, but the two recipes that have kinda worked for me are recipes I invented. One is a sort of tossed paneer salad and the other is a tava paneer. Both recipes are simple and any additions to the base paneer are even lower GI, so overall both dishes should be very low GI, though I cannot give you an accurate figure.

First up is the tossed paneer salad recipe. You can use this as a filling in a Kathi roll made of misi roti if you like or you can eat it as is.

Ingredients:

200 gms paneer (cut into cubical chunks about 3/4th of an inch in size. You can make them larger if you like)
1 big onion, cut into 3/4th inch pieces, kind of the way you cut onions to put them on a skewer (seekh)
2 small ripe tomatoes, cut into 3/4th inch size cubes. Remove the core of the tomatoes.The seeds are a mood killer in this recipe. I just eat the core. I never waste it.
1 big capsicum cut into 3/4th inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon of roasted zeera powder
Salt to taste
A pinch of sugar
Pepper or red chili powder (whichever you like better)
1 tablespoon of ghee. Oil will do fine too, but I prefer ghee.

In a non-stick wok, heat the ghee till it is sizzling hot. Throw in all the cut veggies and fry them on high heat. The reason we fry them on high heat is so that it doesn't get all watery. I like the veggies quite firm, but you can fry them as much as you like. For me the veggies are done when the skin of the capsicum shrivels just a little bit. Then, put in the roasted zeera powder, the salt, the pepper and the pinch of sugar. At this stage, you can add a teaspoon of tomato ketchup, if you like the taste. If you add ketchup, omit the sugar. Fry on low heat for a couple of minutes more and then toss in the paneer. Let the paneer get coated with the spice mixture and then fry it for another couple of minutes. The final product should be slightly moist, but certainly not wet.

You can eat this like a snack or you can roll it into a misi roti to make a kathi roll. You can also eat it as a side dish with any kind of roti. The key is to eat this straight off the stove or it's no fun.

Next up is the tava paneer. I eat this as a snack and it's ridiculously simple to make.

Ingredients

200 gms paneer sliced into big square or triangular pieces that are about a centimeter thick. You can slice them thicker if you like.
Roasted zeera powder
Pepper/red chili powder (optional)
Salt
Ghee to toast. Ghee tastes best with this recipe.

On an iron tawa (like a roti tawa), pour a small portion of the ghee and toast 4-5 pieces of paneer on both sides. Sprinkle the salt, zeera powder and pepper. Turn the pieces over and toast on the other side. Now, how firm you want the paneer is really a matter of taste. I just toast it enough to fry the spices a little ,about 1 minute on each side, and I take it off before the paneer starts to get crisp. This is because I like it soft. You can increase the amount of ghee and toast the paneer until it gets quite crisp too.

This snack is pretty healthy, if you go easy on the fat. And you get a good amount of protein this way.

So that's it for today. Tell me how you like it, if you try it :)

Low GI Pongal/Khichdi - Basmati and Green Gram

Khichdi! That panacea for all tummy trouble, that pan-indian comfort food, that one-pot wonder that mommy/daddy can cook up in 20 minutes. Who doesn't love Khichdi?

The trouble as usual is the high-ish glycemic index of this food. It's anywhere between 45-55 and the glycemic load for about 200 grams is 30. That's high. We'd want to bring it down by quite a bit so it is at least medium GI, if not low. Unfortunately, I'm a little handicapped by the lack of proper GI measurements for Indian foods. So whatever I put here is just an estimate.

Here's what I suggest. Replace the white rice in khichdi/pongal with brown basmati rice or even regular basmati rice as these are considerably lower GI. The glycemic load for 100 gms of short grained white rice is between 20 and 30 and for basmatic rice, it is between 10 and 15, so you have a good reduction right there.Then, replace the mung dal (green gram) with whole mung dal. The GI of whole mung dal is ridiculously low at 5.

So for 200 gms of khichdi, your value should come down to between 15 and 20 at the very most. The value will probably be even lower, because of the added fat and high water content.

So here's the recipe. This recipe is for the South Indian variant, that is, for pongal. Using the same proportions and different spices, you can make khichdi too.


Pongal (Serves 5 at 200 gms per serving)

Ingredients

1 cup - Brown basmati rice (regular basmati rice is
fine too)
1 cup - Whole mung dal
2 tbsp - Ghee (can reduce this if you like)
1 tsp - Jeera
A fistful of curry leaves (optional)
3-5 shredded red chilis
Freshly ground pepper to taste. The powder should be coarse and granular. (I use a lot because I love the taste)
Salt to taste

Instructions

Wash the rice and dal and and cook them in a pressure cooker with 8 cups of water, if you are using brown rice. If you are using white rice, 6 cups of water is sufficient. Leave the cooker on a high flame until you get one whistle and then reduce the flame. If you're using brown rice, leave it on low flame for 15-20 minutes and then turn it off. For white rice, 10 minutes on a low flame is sufficient.

Once the dal-rice mixture is cooked, open the cooker and add the salt and the freshly crushed pepper. Store bought pepper powder will just not work in this recipe. The pepper has to be freshly and coarsely ground. Then, prepare your seasoning as follows. Heat the ghee in a small pan, throw in the zeera and wait for it to splutter. Then, add the curry leaves and shredded red chilis and wait until the red chilis change color. Don't allow them to burn, however. Pour this ghee mixture over the cooked dal-rice mixture.

That's it. Easy peasy and tastes awesome.

Note: If it's Khichdi you want, pour the ghee in the cooker before you put the dal-rice mixture in. Then, fry some chopped onions and mixed veggies and some whole spices (2-3 cloves, 1 inch cinnamon, 2-3 cardamom, 1 big bay leaf) in the ghee. The spices are optional; some people like them and some don't. Then add the dal-rice mixture, water and salt and cook it for the same amount of time as before. Tastes very different from pongal, but equally awesome.