India is a country that has a date with gluten at least twice a day. Chapatis and rotis make for a healthy diet as the nation has believed since long. Going gluten-free means revisiting your diet and entirely changing the way one has been cooking for ages. Will the threat of
India is slowly opening up to gluten-free diet while the West has made inroads into gluten intolerance research. Many experts and nutrition specialists have been warning for long that gluten disorders were affecting an increasing number of people across the world.
According to them, avoiding gluten from diet will ensure a better sense of well-being, a great health for years and higher energy levels. Many people have said their sense of ‘comprehensive wellness’ has increased after they kept gluten out of their diet. But in India, it is largely seen as a western concept and it is not treated with the same seriousness as in the West. Lack of awareness and acknowledgement has led to an increased risk of Celiac disease in the country.
Fitness experts who advocated replacing rice with rotis now have a tough task at hand. And those who want to clear their gut, the most affected part of the body when gluten enters the digestive stream, have to give up on humble foods they have been eating since time immemorial. Gluten-free foods are far and few between. But the perks of giving up gluten are really high when compared to the aspect of ‘rethinking food.’
If someone said he/she had to have gluten-free rotis few years ago, the eyes would roll and eyebrows would shoot up to convey confusion and disbelief. But things are slowly changing for good. Now restaurants serve gluten-free recipes, even when the level of awareness of Celiac disease remains at bare minimum. Whether one agrees or not, gluten-intolerance is here to stay and India is slowly turning back to its traditional cooking that was low in gluten, always.
Some gluten-free diet aficionados have been advocating ‘trial-and-conclusion’ method of keeping gluten out of the gut. A six-week trial, as advocated by some dieticians, is about avoiding foods like chapattis, rotis, cakes, biscuits, doughnuts, asafoetida and related products.
Instead, what comes in is the good old rice and rice-based items such as dosa, idly, appam etc. The millets that were considered the food of the poor such as ragi, jowar and bajra make a grand comeback. Consuming good quantities of fresh curd, milk, lassi, fruits and vegetables are certain to make the gut colonies better infested with helpful bacteria, which will accelerate the digestion process.
Staying off gluten is not just about improving digestion. It is also about glowing skin and beauty benefits are aplenty with this diet. It’s here to stay!