Stugazine

Samosa, Panipuri, Noodles, Pizza, Burger, Donuts, Bread, Momo and Pasta. Okay, now that I have your attention, I will go ahead and disappoint you with the fact that the above-mentioned eatables have been slowly poisoning you for a very long time now. We Indians always find excuses to celebrate. Be it a birthday or an anniversary or an achievement or a wedding, food is the show stopper. Nothing satisfies a person as much as a food does.

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody”-Oscar Wilde

Yes, that is how we connect with food. But on the downside, not everything we consume is nutritious. All the mouth-watering meal is predominantly less- healthy. Yes, looks are deceiving. Who would possibly say no to a hot, crispy and soft Parotta? I would absolutely not. What about the road-side panipuris that we gulp-in all the time? Likewise, most of the commonly con-sumed food items are rich in maida. Mostly, maida or refined flour is used as it gives a better texture to the product. Let us first know how maida is made.

Processing of maida:

During processing of maida from wheat, the endosperm of the wheat is removed from the germ and the bran.

In wheat there are two parts, the edible outside shell and the non- edible inside part that does not contain any fiber. Alloxan, a chemical is used for bleaching the what to improve its color and softness. Because of this process, maida becomes very soft; as it had already gone through the dangerous chemical processing.

So, how am I affected?

As all necessary nutrition is lost during the processing of maida, food made from it utilizes the nutrients from our body for absorption. As a result our body gets depleted of vitamins and minerals. Alloxan isthe product of decomposition of uric acid. It takes up larger amount of pancreatic beta cells and destroys it. Pancreas which is responsible for regulation of glucose and sugar, gets damaged by Alloxaneventually leading a person to diabetic state.

Too much science? No, too much poison!!

Why is maida nearly unavoidable?

Traditionally maida has been used as a primary ingredient of bakery sector in India. Maida remains as an integral ingredient in making Indian breads such as naan, parathas which are widely consumed all over India. Even in our own household maida is used as a main ingredient in making eggless sponge cake, roti, naan,jalebi and many more. Small quantities of maida is being added in the recipe of the following food items such as rasgulla, corn balls, vegetable cutlets, gulab jamun, spring rolls, rasamalai and so on. Clearly poison in disguise. This is how maida has emerged as an irreplaceable food material nearly in every kitchen in India.

With both the parents working, we have very less time preparing breakfast and lunch every day. Every morning working women and men are used to taking BREAD for their breakfast. In India maida- based bread is mostly in sales than wheat-based breads. Wheat bread is milled from whole wheat grains. Whole wheat bread is much higher in Fiber, vitamin B6 and E, Magnesium, zinc, and Chromium. Whole wheat flour is prepared using all the three nutritious parts, but white flour uses only the endosperm. There’s so little fiber left after processing that you’d have to eat eight pieces of white bread to get the equivalent amount of fiber in just one piece of whole wheat bread. How can we find if bread is really whole wheat bread?! Color used to be a clue… But no more!!! Although white bread is white because it’s been bleached, some dark breads available due to caramel coloring added to it. Look for whole wheat bread as the first ingredient on the label. If any other ingredient is first, put the loaf back and keep looking!

Why maida rules?

Maida‘s supply increased because of road side food lovers who prefer road side foods (chaat items) more than healthy foods. All the fancy foods, easy or ready to eat foods have maida in it. Further we look for substitutes, but substitutes do not give the taste like maida. Taste really matters to children than adults and they get carried away with it.

How to start being healthy?

We always tend to choose taste over health all the time. It is high time to do our research on the food we eat and the ingredients we add in our own home-made food. Let us all practice eating sprouts for snacks rather than munching on Samosa or Panipuri. Simple food-change in our lifestyle can build a great and healthy future.

After all we all live only once, why not make it worth living for? Why not stay healthy to live the life to the fullest?

Have you thought how much we can travel the world, if we did not have to spend all our money on medicines? Most of the time we get sick because we have never included a healthy meal in our diet. It is time to think, revisit our food choices and look through the poison in maida and stand in favor of healthy diet.

Shall we all take it up to follow a healthy food regimen as our new resolution for 2020?