The Maze of Modern Nutrition

Incorporating traditional practices in modern eating

- Padmaja Menon

Nowadays, when you switch on the TV or read the newspaper or any magazine, you read about what to eat and what not to. Every other second there is a second opinion or theory or research or Gyan on what to eat/drink, how to eat/drink, when to eat/drink, and why to eat/drink. It just ends up making people confused and wary. Bulimia pops up, Keto diets and intermittent fasting and exercises and yoga and a horde of options are then shown available. The latest I read was the Dorito theory! It's like the addictive eating of stuff you crave. Then again, a write-up says you should not heat meat or mushrooms or rice or any food for that matter. Gosh, how is that even possible? No one cooks just before eating; even cooks come and prepare food in the morning for the evening, and you do need to heat up food.

But no, that increases bacteria and salmonella. Uff! What can an ordinary homemaker do? I decided to google a few eating habits of yore. Much attention is being paid to what people ate in the distant past as a guide to what we should eat today. Advocates of the claimed paleo diet recommend that we should avoid carbohydrates and load our plates with red meat and fat. Its critics, on the other hand, argue that these are the same ingredients that would set us up for heart attacks. Moreover, these animal-derived foods require more space to produce on our crowded planet filled with starving humans.

A factual foundation for the debate is provided by a review of the eating patterns of early humans and how we adapted to digest starches softened by cooking. The researchers contend that it was digestible starches that provided extra energy needed to fuel the energy needs of bigger brains, rather than extra protein from meat to grow these brains.