Why Indian Food Is Fattening, And How to Make it Healthier
Many people think that healthy takeaway food means simply avoiding a burger and fries or KFC chicken. Often, ethnic foods such as Chinese or Indian are seen as the healthy option - perhaps because they don't come with a side order of fries and a coke.
Unfortunately, it's a nutritional minefield out there, and things are rarely what they seem.
I am a great fan of Indian food - so here's my take on 'healthier options' when eating Indian.
Dairy Fat
Most curries are made with either cream or ghee. This will obviously vary from chef to chef and the menu on offer. Ghee is essentially clarified butter (unsalted butter is simmered until water has boiled off, the surface is spooned off discarding the milk solids at the bottom).
There are some that claim pure ghee has health benefits - however I suspect that most ghee used in modern Indian restaurants is probably a different version (perhaps vegetable-based) than the traditional pure butter version.
Garlic Naan
Fattening and Calorie Dense
A typical meal will also be accompanied with a flatbread and copious amounts of rice. Most people choose a naan (nan) bread. A naan is made from white flour, and is usually brushed with butter or ghee just before serving.
There are other breads such as roti, paratha, chappati, and all the variations that go with them. Typically a roti is made from wheat flour or a whole wheat flour blend.
Effectively you have a very calorie-dense meal with very little in the way of vegetables.
A diet like this will be fattening for most people. However there are choices you can make to eat healthier Indian food.
How to Make an Indian Takeaway Healthier
I used to get a chicken curry with naan and rice. That was enough to do me for two meals. Nowadays I'm even more choosy.Once a fortnight I go out by myself and eat an indian meal at an incredibly leisurely pace. I have sat in the restaurant while others have come and gone. This is the anti-thesis of the fast food mentality.
I order a selection of entrees and sides:
- A chicken tikka entree. Typically this is pieces of boneless skinless chicken marinaded in a varying array of flavors. This is not served in a sauce - it's just the chicken.
- Roti. Often the roti breads are a far smaller serving size than the naans and use wholemeal flour.
- Salad. I ask for as large a serving as they will make. In most places the salads are delicious, and usually consist of a mix of cucumber, capsicum, cabbage, carrot, etc. Only once has a restaurant looked bewildered at my salad request. They ended up serving me with what looked like some quickly thawed frozen veg from a bag!
- Sometimes I'll get a glass of red wine.
That's it. Due to the pace of the meal (and the level of protein) I feel completely satisfied. Other options include vegetarian curries. You just need to ask.
Never Enough
Just last week, in the time it took me to consume the above, a couple near me consumed a creamy curry and rice each, a naan each, asked for extra rice, and asked for an extra naan. An astonishing amount of food, eaten in a very short space of time (you tend to notice these things when eating alone!).
We really do need to re-learn the lost art of enjoying food.
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50 Comments
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Created / Updated: January 7, 2012
I agree - we seem to be obsessed with scoffing down as much food as we can in a short period of time. Take you time with food, you'll enjoy it more and you won't get indigestion. :-)
ReplyThere is definitely a difference between "authentic" Indian food and that perverted (sorry, lack of a better word) to accomodate American tastes. Having traveled to the sub-continent and spoiled with the "real" thing, it's frustrating here in the US to get decent Indian food!
The breads are typically, and supposed to be made from whole-wheat flour or flours from barley, millet, chickpea - if you're going to an establishment using white flour, they're cutting corners for cost saving. It's also unheard of to eat both the bread and rice with the meal - it's one or the other, not both.
Vegetables, from my experience, are always part of the traditional Indian meal - they're either incorporated into the main dish or within a selection of side dishes with spinach, eggplant, onions, carrots and peas featured prominently. Most restaurants in the US offer them as side dishes, a la carte - but they are supposed to be part of the meal!
Lastly, and very important to highlight, is that even those dishes that are cream-sauce/ghee based are powerhouses nutritionally - the spices especially boost the nutrient-density of almost any Indian main dish. I have one chicken dish recipe I got while overseas, and when I ran it through a nutrient calculator, I was shocked it provided almost all nutrients for a day in one serving....and yes, it has cream, full-fat yogurt and butter in it. This is something I've noted in many of the recipes I have that are "authentic" Indian - they're rich with nutrients and that's often from the spices and natural fats used in copious amounts!
It's definitely time consuming, but in almost any good Indian/Pakistani restaurant you can get your food prepared traditionally....you just have to ask for it to be authentic, as they'd eat it. But, you also have to like it spicy - because that's what you're going to get!
ReplyIn my experience, the vegetarian options at Indian restaurants are not only probably healthier than the meat options, but they taste better, as well. Of course, this probably varies from city to city and restaurant to restaurant.
ReplyI always get a spinach and mushroom dosa, eat half, and take the other half home. It comes with lentil soup too. Lots of veggies, no meat...it's very good!
Since I only eat Indian a few times a year (unless I make it at home and control it, and then it's more *modified* Indian) and it's my favorite food, I just disregard Calories and such for then and go buckwild.
It's my enjoyment food--- everything else, I will *ALWAYS* track. Indian, no way, love it and the variations too much.
You should see me grilling the people if I go to a Thai restaurant, etc. It's so hard to get nutritional data on ethnic food, that you're almost restricted to cheap chains when you're eating... just so you know exactly what and how much you're eating. Which sucks for me, since I'd give up Chili's or Applebees for Poonas or Thai Down any day. =/
ReplyMost people's experience of Indian is in the noisy food court at the local mall. The noise alone is enough to give me indigestion.
ReplyI love Indian food. There are some exceptions, but I think authentic version is always healthier than what we get here.
For instance, professional cooks from China, when they arrive in US, often go to a school so that they can learn to cook all over again - "sweet and sour pork" is not found in authentic Chinese cuisine.
ReplyIndian food is a great alternative especially when eaten in the right context - meaning Indians are mostly vegetarian.
You can visit my own Interactive Fast Food browser to compare fast foods to each other.
ReplyJim,
That's very little food for a night of dining out, wow! :-)
I think it's important to mention yogurt as a staple in Indian cuisine; many of the sauces and dips are made from yogurt. Also the health benefits of many spices (such as turmeric and coriander) are important to consider. There is nothing wrong with curries and rice as long as they're prepared authentically and consumed in moderation.
ReplyIf you want authentic food of any type you have to go to a source that cooks and serves it in the ways of that region or country.
ReplyTrying to keep to Montignac diet stage 1, not mixing oils with carbs. Would you cook vegetables without oil if you are making a bean curry? I can't avoid frying onions or chillies in oil first, can you?
ReplyTandoori selections are often good choices for Indian as they are made with a yogurt base and then baked.
As for making curries without frying the chilis or spices in oil... try toasting them. You can do this in a toaster oven or in a frying pan without oil. Then once toasted, add directly to your curries or grind them if desired in a coffee grinder used strickly for spices. The flavor is just as intense as frying your spices.
As for your onions, you can use a light spray or a tiny bit of oil mixed with broth. It does not take much before the onions release their own juices.
ReplyThere's different types of Indian cooking. There's North Indian cooking and South Indian cooking. The north indian cooking comes from people who live in the northern part of India. And the south Indian cooking comes from people who live in the southern part of India. North India is colder. South India is hotter. North Indian cooking consists of more fattening foods. South Indian cooking is less fattening, I think. But both use oils which make it fattening. But i think south indian cooking uses much less oil than north indian cooking. North Indian cooking is just drenched in alot of fat. NOt south indian cooking, because the climate is hotter. South Indian cooking does not use ghee or cream and is spicier. And they eat more rice based foods. They also like fish. And the south eats more meat. People think south indians don't eat vegetables as often, which is not true. They always incorporate vegetables on the side. But I think they cook the vegetables in a way which kills the nutrients.
Oh and South Indians do incorporate yogurt into their food. But they don't cook WITH the yogurt. The yogurt is usually on the side. And they make different types of yogurt. There's the more liquid type yogurt which has mustard and spices.
The north indian one has a green kind of liquid yogurt which has cilantro in it, which is my favorite.
ReplyThe liquid is called 'Masala Chaas'.Its diluted yoghurt/curd with some salt,cumin,black pepper,green chillies,coriander,mint and cilantro in it.The 'masala/spices'that I mentioned above gives it the interesting tangy flavor.Some prefer to have it plain too especiall in South India which is devoid of the spices mentioned above
ReplyMasalaa Chas is NOT south Indian :-). In south India its called Moru and doesnt have the masalas (jeera etc) that Masala chas has.
ReplyThat's another thing. Most of these ethnic foods you find in restaurants aren't always the kind eaten at home by these people. The Chinese restaurants, for example, make alot of foods that they usually only eat during celebrations.
Replypplz shud just eat rite and go out there and get ative insead of all these diets that are runing thier bodys bt then again its ok :p
ReplyThai cooking is also similar to Indian cooking, and I find Thai personally more healthy.
ReplyHi Interesting blog there!
ReplyI'm Indian, live in Bombay. Have lived in the US for a while and I know restaurant Indian food isn't real Indian food. India has over 25 states and each state having several styles of cooking. The traditional styles always followed ayurvedic principles, thereby, they were extremely balanced, healthy, minimum flavouring, maintaining the true taste of the food. Sadly, the world sees only the CURRIED Indian version.
I do admit that our traditional cuisine is surely one of the healthiest cuisines around, sadly people don't get to taste it outside of our homes :)