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t used to be that three square meals a day was enough to keep a person
healthy and kicking - get in your meat and veggies is what people
would say. These days though, it’s said that your food intake needs to
be broken up into 5-6 small meals.
Sounds simple enough, but wait, there is also debate on which foods you
are eating. It goes as far as tracing the source and checking its composition
before you even think of putting that can of beans in your basket. And if
this isn’t a tad overwhelming already, you also have more than a handful
of diets that are toted as being ‘the healthiest of them all.’
So How Do You Choose?
Dietician Fareeha Jay, the founder of Aap Ki Dietician, breaks it down:
Clean Eating
What’s
The
Word?
Text By Sana Panjwani
Designed By Muneeba Asif Ali
The term clean eating is used a lot on social media but to date there has
never been any agreement on what it really means. The main principle of
clean eating, however, is eliminating processed food, reducing salt intake,
eating more vegetables, choosing whole grains and eliminating refined
sugar. For some people, it also means you need to be gluten, and dairy-
free.
Although, all these seem like healthy choices yet we don’t need to label
our diet as being clean. According to this concept cakes, biscuits, crisps,
pakora, samosa are all “unclean.” And when we have these foods it creates
a feeling of guilt, so that we slowly start developing a negative relationship
with food which becomes a dilemma.
In the end, we don’t need to label diets as “clean,” rather we need to focus
on the overall diet quality. Take high fat and high sugar foods as treats
once a while but pay attention to more beneficial food groups.
Organic Vs Inorganic Food
Studies show that organic foods are high in certain anti-oxidants and lower
in pesticides compared to inorganic, conventional, foods. But that’s not
all, even if foods are organic, there are many other variables that can affect
its nutritional composition, such as the field and soil as well as the season
they it was grown in.
Vegetarianism
This is a diet based on grains, pulses, legumes, nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruits,
fungi, algae, and yeast with or without eggs. This diet can be personal to
the person, based on their beliefs, religion or their own personal choice.
It’s believed that most vegetarians won’t get enough protein, calcium,
vitamin B 12 and iron. However, with proper planning it is achievable.
Source of iron will be: eggs, pulses, dried fruit, dark-green vegetables,
whole meal bread and fortified cereals.
Sources for B12 would be: milk cheese eggs, fortified yeast extracts like
marmite cheese, fortified breakfast cereal and fortified soya products.
Sources of calcium: tofu, calcium-fortified foods e.g. soya milk, yoghurts,
rice and oat drinks, green leafy vegetables, brown or white bread, sesame
seeds, nuts, apricots and figs.
Source of protein: beans, lentils, chickpeas soya and soya products, seeds,
nuts grains such as wheat rice and m