Chaunsa or Langra, Love Your Mangoes Guiltlessly: Rujuta Diwekar

Cameraperson: Shiv Kumar Maurya
Editor: Rahul Sanpui

Celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar lists down four food items to include in your diet or to stay away from. She points out the advantages of mangoes, ghee and rice, and emphasises that they are great for your health. Here’s a reminder to stop looking at mainstream views and instead go back to the traditional diet of dal chawal with a little bit of ghee.

Here’s a breakdown by Rujuta about what to eat and how.

Say Yes to Ghee...Wait, What?!

Ghee is a great food item and you should include this in your diet, says Rujuta. However it’s important to keep in mind how you consume it, and that it’s not masking the taste of your food, only enhancing it.

Ghee has essential fatty acids which help us build the right environment in the gut for good bacteria to thrive and it also helps us in the assimilation of vitamins like Vitamin D, Vitamin A, Vitamin E which are all required for good bones, good immunity, good skin, good health. In fact, Cleveland clinic also recently released a poster talking about the glories of ghee.

Rujuta Diwekar

How Much Ghee Can an Average Person Have: This depends a lot on the manner in which you’re eating ghee.

Well, how much ghee you should eat depends on what is it that you’re eating. Are you eating dal-bhati or are you eating dal chawal? Are you eating puran-poli or are you eating roti sabzi?

Rujuta Diwekar

Rice is Not the Evil We Make it Out to Be

If you’re eating rice in the right quantity and teaming it well with the rest of your diet, it will make you feel light and easy. If had for dinner, it will also ensure a good night’s sleep, allowing you to be more active during the rest of the day.

However, it’s important to keep in mind the locality of the rice. The most ideal situation is eating rice which is grown within a 100 km radius of where you stay.

The second thing to be kept in mind is the proportion.

Not the portion of rice, but the proportion. You need the right amount of rice for the dal, kadhi, rajma or dahi that you are eating with it and the typical proportion in which rice really works well is the proportion of khichdhi or idli. You always have more rice and a little less of the pulses. So, if you begin to have your rice like that and add that one teaspoon of ghee, then all that the rice will do is make you feel light, energetic and it will actually even allow you to have a good night’s sleep and wake up fresh the next day and you can go out there and exercise.

Rujuta Diwekar

Artificial Sweeteners are a Big No-No

Artificial sweeteners should be completely steered cleared off, says Rujuta.

Our body doesn’t even recognise that chemical and invariably what it does is give you more sugar craving. So, instead of really keeping you low on the calories it just makes you restless for more junk food calories so that is something you should never be touching.

Rujuta Diwekar

Lastly, the Many Benefits of Mangoes

Rujuta’s advice is simple - not just mangoes, but any fresh fruit is great for you.

The problem in our country is that we ask people to avoid mangoes, bananas, sitaphal, chiku - all the indigenous fruits, if they have diabetes. But we ask them to eat the apple and the kiwi and the berry if they have diabetes. It’s almost like saying that if you get fructose from non-native fruits, it’s okay, but if you get fructose from native fruits, it’s not okay.

Rujuta Diwekar

When fruits are local and in season, they are likely to have lesser amount of pesticides and travelled a smaller distance. This would ensure that they’re healthier than fruits kiwis and berries which are imported from far away places.

Coming back to mangoes, she adds:

The other thing is also that fructose by nature is low on the glycemic index which is why even associations like the American Diabetic Association recommend that you have intake of fresh fruit because most diabetics also have issues of digestion or constipation. A fresh fruit helps you with that. In fact, mango even makes it to the American list of foods that you should be having. 

Rujuta Diwekar

When we are the largest exporters of mangoes in the world, why are we shying away from them, asks Rujuta.