Wonderful salads and fruits
(By Lisa Sarah John, Courtesy Bangalore Times, Jul 24, 2006)
As refined and fast foods flood our markets, TV screens and bodies, natural fibre seems to disappear.
Many parents say their children don’t eat fruits and salads, even vegetables. The question is, do we eat them ourselves?
Are they are part of our own dining tables?
We are all busy, and what’s convenient, fast and tasty is what’s eaten. It’s easier
to eat a chocolate or ready dessert after dinner than to wash and cut a fruit. At the end of a long working day, women are
too tired to cut salad. Eating rice or pasta or calling for a pizza is easier than slogging over making rotis.
People should eat both cooked and raw food, whole fruits and salads, and natural foods like grains
of wheat, ragi, jowar, bajra, corn, oats and whole beans like channa, rajma, moong, lobia, etc.
They are packed with vitamins and minerals which help us to keep well and and fight off infections. Adults and children regularly
eating these fall ill less often. Secondly, extra vitamins and minerals help body processes function efficiently, giving a
feeling of high energy and fitness which no tonics can supply.
Finally, these foods are a source of natural fibre which protects against obesity and its connected
problems, like hypertension, diabetes or heart disease. And they give relief from constipation and acidity.
How does fibre work? Fruits, salads, rotis, beans, fill us up so we eat less high calorie or
fatty foods. Eating a salad helps cut down on overeating. Two phulkas are healthier than one cup of polished rice.
Also, every time you consume fibre, your body has to work hard to digest it. To digest whole wheat
bread or phulkas, for instance, your body has to work harder, so it will burn stored fat, break down some cholesterol
in your blood, or use up extra glucose, lowering your blood sugar levels. Your body hardly works to digest apple juice. But
if you eat an apple, you chew for 10 minutes, a form of internal exercise. You feel fuller, fresher and feel lighter and healthier
in the bargain.
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