This Week on IFN: About the BMC & Fad Diets

Chai and pakoda. Rains and road trips. Binge watching Sacred Games on Netflix. Does that just about cover your monsoon mood? For me, the monsoons have been all about the BMC and fad diets. Both are experts at quick fixes, don’t you think? Why be bothered with employing strategy and thought to come up with long-term solutions to long-term problems nowadays?

I remember my first ever diet. Sometime after my 20s, my good run with good genes gave in to years of careless eating and only stray thoughts about exercise. I was going on a date with a long-time crush and suddenly didn’t fit into “the dress that always fit”. My first diet was the Atkins Diet, and so began my journey down the slippery slope of fad diets. Over the next 10 years I had trysts with the Raw Food Diet (beach holiday); the Zone Diet (new job); the Macrobiotic Diet (boredom); and Intermittent Fasting (peer pressure).

Just like the stellar work done by the BMC during every monsoon, each diet gave me the expected results, until it didn’t anymore, or I gave in to a mood or craving.

My 40s and better sense prevailed (not soon enough) and I stopped funding my dieticians’ retirement plans. There must be a better way to look at nutrition, and a different way to like the way I looked in the mirror. Even as Vogue, Bazaar, Hello, Grazia, Filmfare and almost every celebrity in India remain steadfast in their commitment to a size zero version of beauty, I renewed my commitment to good food.

And then I met Ashdin Doctor. A young, good looking gent who went from 90 kilos to six-pack, eats cake, drinks whisky and doesn’t have a “diet plan”… I’ll have some of that please. His approach to health includes nutrition (and not diet); movement (and not exercise); and creating a habit for life, not just the next 5 minutes. Ashdin’s first column for India Food Network busts fad diets and we have a whole lot more to look forward to.

Here are my picks from India Food Network for the week...

Chef Preetha’s Berry and Green Tea Ice Lollies seem like exactly the kind of monsoon treat Ashdin would approve of!

We continue our chai affair with a look at the delicious and nutritious Yerba Mate Tea in our Midweek Crush.

We are now in Week 6 of this school year's Kissan Tiffin Timetable and the latest set of school tiffin recipes comes from Chef Nandita Iyer. I’ve tried her Carrot Orange Pancakes. You should too!