20 minutes agoAuthor: Gaurav Tiwari
- copy link
Recently, a research was presented at the International Conference of Alzheimer’s Association in America. 1 lakh 30 thousand people were included in this research which lasted for 43 years. The research revealed that those who were continuously eating ultra-processed food and the more quantity they were eating, the more severe dementia they suffered from.
Dementia, a disease in which a person’s memory, language, reasoning power and thinking ability are severely affected. Whereas those who stayed away from ultra-processed food or consumed it in less frequency remained healthier.
The question is what were these people eating in ultra-processed food? They were eating all processed red meat, bacon, hot dogs and sausages. All industrially produced processed junk food.
If this study had been done in India, all these questions would have been on pizza, burger, fries and packed chips. There would have been no less questions on chaat, samosa and kachori. Our health is also being harmed a lot by consuming them.
Today ‘health report‘ We will talk about Indian foods. Along with this, we will know that-
- What major things came out from the American study?
- Why traditional method of cooking is good?
- How did ultra-processed food take over our diets?
- What should our food plate be like?
Why Do We Eat Food?
Before moving ahead in the article, let us understand the basic thing that why do we eat food? Its primary purpose is nutrition. We eat food to stay alive and healthy.
Michael Pollan is a well-known former American journalist and guest lecturer at Harvard University. His book ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ has been a New York Times bestseller. Omnivore means omnivorous, that is, a creature that eats both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. Man is an omnivore.
In his book, Paulan articulates the basic needs of food like this.
What did American research reveal?
10 big things of the study
- In this study, more than 1,30,000 people were monitored for 43 years.
- More than 8% of participants in the study developed dementia.
- The study found that regularly eating processed red meat increases the risk of developing dementia.
- Those who ate processed red meat twice a week had a 14% higher risk of dementia than those who ate processed red meat less than three times a month.
- Replacing processed red meat with nuts, beans or tofu every day can reduce the risk of dementia by 20%.
- According to Yuhan Lee, lead author of the study, long-term daily consumption of processed red meat may increase the risk of dementia.
- Along with processed red meat, chips, ice cream and instant soups are also ultra-processed and can cause type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
- Researchers have found that eating processed red meat every day weakens the brain and body’s sensors. The ability to remember is affected.
- The saturated fat, sodium, iron, and nitrites present in processed red meat increase the risk of stroke, chronic inflammation, high blood pressure, and nervous system disorders.
- According to Yuhan Lee, processed red meat contains high amounts of harmful substances like nitrite and sodium, which increases the risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
How much food is beneficial or harmful
is determined by its processing
How beneficial or harmful a food is depends on the process of its preparation. The process through which food goes from growing in the field to reaching our plate is called processing.
Traditional method of cooking is the best
Suppose we eat roti, vegetables, dal and rice in our daily thali. Now take the vegetable. It first comes from the field. Then we wash it, cut it, cook it. We add salt, chilli and spices to it for taste. This is because we cannot eat bitter gourd, bottle gourd, ridge gourd and potato raw.
Like vegetables, pulses also come from the farm. We grind them. Then we clean them and boil them with salt, water and turmeric and eat them. We add ghee for taste. All this is the processing of food, which is making it easily digestible and healthy.
Obviously, we cannot eat raw lentils. Even if we eat it, it will take 4 days to a week to digest it. Talking about milk, curd, butter, buttermilk and ghee are made from it.
What this means is that in his historical development, man has invented many ways to process food. This process of processing is healthy. By processing food–
- Food becomes more delicious than before.
- The nutrition of the food does not get spoiled.
- Cooked food is easier to digest.
- This is the processing of food which is very important.
All this processing is good and necessary. The problem begins when the control of food preparation goes into the hands of industry.
The industry has ruined our food
When the responsibility of preparing our food came into the hands of the food industry, all the problems started from here. In this, companies have to prepare a lot of food on a very large scale in a very short time. For this, they made big machines and put them to work in place of humans. Meanwhile, for profit, they made two big things their basic religion.
- The food should be delicious.
- Food should be cheap.
Cheap and tasty food did harm
Industrial food production has done the most harm. They added lots of sugar and salt to make food tastier. The industry kept food cheap so that it could find more and more buyers.
If you want to make something at a low cost, the formula is simple, just add the cheapest things to it. They used very cheap palm oil, refined flour and sweeteners to make it. After this, cheap preservatives were added to increase its shelf life. During this time, it went through many processes. That is why it is called ultra processing.
Our first choice of junk foods like pizza, burger, and packed chips all go through this ultra processing. This is extremely harmful.
what kind of food should we eat
Senior Nutritionist and Founder of ‘OneDietToday’ Dr. Anu Agarwal says that what should our food be like? The answer to this question may vary according to the place and the needs of the person. Despite this, an ideal thali will be the same everywhere. Vegetables and fruits can be changed according to the locality, yet their quantity is the same in terms of calories and nutrients.
