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Indian Superfoods by Rujuta Diwekar [Book Review]

September 7, 2016

Today was the first day I had an early morning session.  I’ve become used to waking up around 7, so 5 am was a challenge (funny how easy it is to get into the habit of waking up late).  I got ready quickly and hurried to the class.  As usual the class was full, even at that early hour.  Besides the yoga classes, I continue to read voraciously, and these days I’m reading Indian Superfoods by Rujuta Diwekar.

Rujuta’s books are relevant to our lives and times.  By advocating for local food she makes health and fitness accessible to the masses.  Most of us are so busy with the mundanity of life, that we don’t have time to hunt down the best quality goji berries or chia seeds.  So this book is a great resource for those who would like to eat well with the least hassle.  For me it was great because I believe in simple food and wholesome health.  To stay in  optimum health and shape is more a function of eating simple unadulterated food, instead of exotic produce and unpronounceable ingredients lists.

I believe if you focus on quality, then the most commonly available ingredients will have you glowing like a lightbulb.

In addition to this, Rujuta has also brought to light lots of fruits and vegetables from different regions in India.  It helps in us becoming curious and a bit more experimental with our food, and also inculcates a sense of awareness of the richness of what our land has to offer.  From ghee to something called the ambadi fruit, her book makes local produce come alive and become tempting.  This blog isn’t a summary of the book, but just a little bit of info.  The book has a lot more information to offer and I would really suggest that you read Indian Superfoods.  However, here is a little bit of information to pique your interest:

  1. Ghee – It’s a myth that ghee is fattening.  In fact, it is lipolytic, it breaks down fat.  So if you eat ghee you’re helping in breaking down stubborn fat.  Helpful advice that she gives for women:  If you get skin breakouts before or with every period eat ghee at least three times a day.  Plus she has a bonus recipe for how to make ghee.
  2. Kokum – this is a fruit I haven’t had, but I had a drink made out of this at Dastkaar.  Rub kokum butter on the soles of your feet right before you sleep and you will sleep deeply, regardless of how stressed and frazzled you are.  Definitely on my shopping list.
  3. Banana – here I have a banana before every class.  Actually, in Bangalore as well.  It’s a myth that bananas are fattening.  They are low in fat and  help in fat burning and in reducing cholesterol!
  4. Kaju – good to combat PCOD and hypothyroidism.  Prevents adult acne and improves fertility too!
  5. Ambadi – I’ve never had this plant nor heard about it.  Another item on my shopping list.  If you know how to pronounce this word, do let me know.  Interestingly, this local green (and other’s like it) are called ‘orphan crops’, crops that no one grows because there is no demand for them.  You can make it into a sabzi and get your iron, vit B and folic acid from it.  The stems of the Ambadi plant are used to make jhadoos and fabric.  I wonder if they make yoga mats out of this…
  6. Rice – prevents premature wrinkling and supports good hair growth.  Need I say more?
  7. Coconut – doesn’t contain cholesterol because it’s a plant based food.  Plus it actually helps in reducing ‘central adiposity’ (fat in the middle) and so helps in ensuring a slim waist.
  8. Aliv – used in laddoos!  Great for skin, it evens out skin tone, gets rid of patches and naturally brightens the complexion.  Wonder if Diwali laddoos contain this seed…
  9. Jackfruit – low in fat and rich in fibre, so it helps in reducing cholesterol levels.  Also, the fruit has a lot of anti-oxidants.
  10. Sugar – don’t replace with jaggery as both have different properties.  Jaggery adds heat to the body while sugar is a coolant.

If the above points were interesting, you should go out and get a copy of Indian Superfoods.  It does give you food for thought and even if you’re unable to apply everything she talks about into your life, it still helps to be aware of what we are eating and what are the food choices that are available to us.

My copy of the book.

My copy of Indian Superfoods by Rujuta Diwekar.

I’ve written about fenugreek or methi, another spice I consider a superfood in this blog.  Because it’s available readily in Indian kitchens, you might find the post useful.

 

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Yoga

Being Enlightened by Rujuta Diwekar

December 20, 2015

20151219_130154[1]For the last one week or so my friend Geetanjali and I have been excited about the Rujuta Talk that was held yesterday at Sadhu Vaswani Mission’s Little Lamps Pre School.  The excitement was palpable at the venue.  The seats up front were already taken and the camera people were ready.  The best thing about Rujuta’s ideas and beliefs about food is that she preaches a holistic approach to food.  There is nothing fitness fad-ish about what her advice, and her diet guidelines are ‘accessible’ for the masses.  With this in mind I went prepared with pen and paper.

Rujuta’s talk focused on overall family wellness.  So she spoke a lot about children.  There was a Q&A afterwards, where enthusiastic fans needed answers  to all their questions.  I tried my best to note down as much as I could.  Here are my notes:

EXERCISE

  1. 90 minutes of exercise a day is recommended for children.
  2. 150 minutes a week for adults.  Rujuta recommends that you have three sessions a week: weight training, yoga and cardio.  According to Rujuta, men develop a paunch when they lose strength and muscle in their lower body.  Womens’ hips grow wider.  Weight training is an excellent solution for the paunches and the wide hips of this  world.
  3. For every 30 minutes you sit, stand for 3 minutes.  (I’ve already started this by setting an alarm on my phone.)
  4. Diabesity = diabetes + obesity.
  5. Exercise 3 days a week AT A FIXED TIME.  (I believe this has a lot to do with discipline.  In my experience people who don’t pencil their workouts into their calendars are the ones who do them ‘later.’)

SLEEP

  1.  Don’t look at anything that emits light an hour before you sleep.  An important point she made is that fitness bands (the current fad) also emit light and fall under this rule.  So bands that are supposed to measure the quality of your sleep are actually promoting bad quality of sleep.  In her irreverent manner Rujuta said that if you want to know how well you slept then look at the person sleeping next to you.  If you haven’t tossed and turned and snored the entire night, then they would be sleeping peacefully, and that’s a more accurate measure of the quality of your sleep.  (I would like to point out that you maybe have tossed and turned for reasons agreeable to both of you…)
  2. Body chemistry and biology is determined by the HPT axis – Hypothalamus Pituitary Thyroid. (These actually correspond to chakras!)
  3. The HGH (Human Growth Hormone).  With the decreases of HGH there is a also a decrease in muscle tissue and a corresponding increase in fat stores.  And lack of sleep contributes immensely to the decrease of HGH.  (The lack of quality sleep is perhaps what is causing the increase in childhood obesity?)
  4. HGH also decreases with age, which is why you gain weight as you age.  This is why it’s imperative that you continue to workout as you age.

FOOD

  1. Always have breakfast.  Your breakfast should be hot and homemade.  Never have anything that comes out of a packet such as oats and cereals and tetra pack milk (!).
  2. Have your husband cook twice a week  Here Rujuta made a point that resonated very strongly the feminist in me.  She said that most of us have grandfathers who can cook.  Some of us have dads who can cook.  But none of us have husbands who can cook.  In fact our husbands may not even know how much sugar we take in our tea!  To be empowered doesn’t mean to only go out and earn a living and draw a fat paycheck.  Empowerment also has a great deal to do with how much equality exists in the home.
  3. Don’t count the composition of your food (calories, carbohydrates, protein, fat etc.)
  4. Coconuts have no cholesterol.
  5. Cashews have no cholesterol.  If you have high levels of blood sugar you should have cashews.
  6. The USDA has revised it’s guidelines in April 2015 to state that there is no link between cholesterol consumption and heart disease.
  7. Learn food systems and not food groups.
  8. Have a banana on your way to the airport and not a Subway sandwich.
  9. Are you bloated when you wake up?  Do you crave for coffee/tea post a meal?  Are you constipated?  Fear no more!  Just have a banana.  Bananas contain prebiotics, they help in fat burn and they are rich in fiber.  Prebiotics provide the infrastructure for all the millions of good bacteria to flourish in your gut.  These are as important as probiotics.
  10. Great breakfast option:  Roti + banana + sugar
  11. Great fruits with a meal: bananas, jackfruit and mangoes.
  12. “Banana zaroor khana.”
  13. Ghee helps in post pregnancy weight loss.
  14. Make your ghee from milk.  Do NOT use your mixer because the heat from the centrifugal force kills the important fatty acid bonds in the ghee.
  15. Ghee has prebiotics.
  16. Ghee reduces the GI (Glycemic Index) of food.
  17. Have single polished and hand pounded rice.  Rice has lycene, an amino acid which is linked to HGH.  HGH is at it’s peak in the night so if you have rice in the night, you give your HGH a boost.
  18. Raagi is high in calcium, gluten free and high in fiber.  It is a complete non allergen and it’s great for bones.  In an age when everyone seems to be deficient in Vitamin D – Raagi is the solution because it helps in retaining it!
  19. Sugarcane detoxes and cleanses your system.  (It’s cold pressed!  Rujuta exclaimed mirthfully.)  If you have sugarcane juice in the winter, you can prevent all the seasonal issues that come along with the onset of winters.
  20. Jaggery – another form of sugarcane!  It contains glycolic acid which prevents wrinkles and it keeps your collagen intact.  (Personally I’d rather eat wholesome food containing glycolic acid than slathering on chemical formulae on my face.)

Post the session everyone gathered around Rujuta to ask her questions, take pictures and have her sign their books.  I also took a book along but was dissuaded to go up to her by the throng of people around her.  However, Geetanjali whipped out her phone and egged me on.  And when I finally managed to get up to Rujuta and told her that I’ve taken notes and is it OK if I put it up on the blog, she said yes! of  course and what blog is it that I write for?  I told her that I have a blog called yogawithpragya and Geetanjali captured this moment:

 

Rujuta says she’s read my blog!!!! OMG!!!! Rujuta Diwekar has visited my blog (happy dance)!!!!  That explains this expression:

IMG-20151219-WA0010[1]

All in all it was an awesome morning.  Rujuta is an engaging and intelligent speaker.  She seamlessly links grandmother’s food wisdom to solutions to modern day environmental issues such as global warming.  She talks about cooking and women’s empowerment.  She talks about the transience of food fads.  And she reads the newspapers and this blog! 🙂

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Yoga

1 Book Review, 5 Useful Health Tips

April 27, 2014

Maybe it’s just me, but Rujuta Diwekar’s tone has become progressively snide and condescending with each book. She sounds like a school teacher – and your least favourite one at that.  So I picked up Don’t Lose Out, Work Out with a little trepidation.  (After all, I felt that using the words ‘Women’ ‘Weight Loss’ and ‘Tamasha’ in the same line is kind of derogatory to the despair that a lot of women go through because of their weight issues.  Lumping up the despair, the depression, the hopelessness, the tears, the dejection, the bleakness, the distress, the discouragement etc as ‘tamasha’ just didn’t seem right to me.) 

And frankly the book reads like a science textbook. I guess Rujuta was trying to convince readers that she actually knows what she’s talking about, and giving her readers scientific proof to back her claims.  What she forgets is that readers are buying her books because they instinctively trust her and her work.  But what Rujuta seems to be doing is, shoving science (or ‘sports science’ as she is quick to point out) down our throats in an attempt to prove to us that we know nothing, and neither does our trainer.  And for that matter neither does your dietician (unless, and this is pure conjecture, she’s Rujuta Diwekar), and alas, neither does your doctor.  Does Rujuta say this in so many words?  No.  She implies it.  Towards the end of the book she writes, “The trainer here is the person who spends the maximum time with you, often waiting…But he is on the fringes of an upcoming profession, either belongs to the middle or the lower middle class, hasn’t really studied beyond 10th or 12th and can barely speak English.  So he/she may know why you should do weight training, why weights will help you…But ask them to put those things in words and they mess up!  And how!”  I have a fundamental problem with this description of trainers…and also with the belief that if I have a trainer then he/she will fit the above description.  The fitness/health/wellness industry that Rujuta herself is a part of has come a long way since she wrote her first book, and so have trainers and trainees.

And I don’t get me started on her Yoga chapter…

However, there are some lessons to be learned (and retained for the future) from the book. Here are five of them:

  1. Walking twice a day will not help you lose real weight or burn more calories.  What a workout which happens twice a day lacks is proper recovery time.  When you’ve walked for an hour, you’ve put a lot of strain your joints, muscles, body chemistry (hormones, oxygen, glycogen etc) and even your breathing.  Rest is important for your body to recover and bounce back.  If your body doesn’t get adequate rest your immunity decreases and you’re more likely to get injured.
  2. There is nothing such as spot reduction.  As a yoga trainer and fitness enthusiast, people have told me countless times that ‘everything else is fine, just my tummy’ or ‘I’m happy with the rest of my body, just my arms’ or ‘the rest of my body looks like me, but my legs look like they are a sumo wrestler’s legs’.  Usually people work out targeting specific ‘problem areas’.  So they’ll do squats to target their butt and leg lifts to target stubborn belly fat.  Repetitions in your workout just help you to utilize the readily available free fatty acid cells (which are a source of energy) in the blood stream instead of targeting the fat residing in the muscles.  And what’s more, this kind of workout has no after-burn, so any calorie burn is only during the repetitions and very little post your workout.  So, if you want to lose your belly fat you will need to balance a workout comprising cardio and a high intensity interval training.
  3. Only increase one parameter of your workout at a time.  So if you’re running on the treadmill, increase only the incline or the speed at one time.  Doing both puts unnecessary strain on your bones.
  4. Plan your workouts in such a way that they never exceed 60 minutes, including your warm-up and cool down.  Chemically the body only has the fuel reserves to work out for 60 minutes.  In fact, for most people the fuel reserves run out after 30 minutes.
  5. Plan your post workout meals well.  45 minutes post your workout is the best time to push more nutrients into your muscles and for your body to use the available nutrients well and to recover from stress and strain so that your immunity doesn’t go down.  So drink a glass of water and eat something which has carbs, protein, fat, vitamins and minerals.  This sounds complicated, but a banana or potato sandwiches are good options.
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