Every Pure Bites article tagged beginners.
Nutrition & health
What is the red warning label on packaged food, and is it mandatory yet?
India’s food regulator has proposed a red hexagon on the front of packaged food that is high in fat, sugar or salt, and the Supreme Court has reserved its order. What is proposed, what is still undecided, and how to read the back of a pack in the meantime.
Smart snacking
How much salt is too much, and how much is in the namkeen I eat?
WHO and India’s dietary guidelines both set the limit at 5 g of salt a day — about a teaspoon — and nearly half of Indians are over it. How to turn the sodium on a namkeen label into grams of salt, and what a handful costs you.
Everyday eating
How much cooking oil should one person use in a day?
India’s dietary guidelines put added oil and fat at 20–50 g a day depending on how active you are — about 27–30 g on a 2,000 kcal diet. What that is in teaspoons, in a month’s shopping, and where a fried snack fits inside it.
Everyday eating
Why am I so sleepy after lunch every day, and how do I stop it?
The 2 pm slump has three causes stacked on top of each other: a large, carbohydrate-heavy lunch, the glucose rise and dip that follows it, and a body clock that dips in the early afternoon anyway. Two of the three are fixable at the plate. Here is how, and when the sleepiness is a sign to get a blood test.
Nutrition & health
What should I eat for gut health — do I need probiotics, or is there something in normal Indian food?
Sixty-one percent of Indian consumers now say gut health matters to them, and most of what they are sold for it is a bottle. The foods that actually feed a healthy gut are already in the kitchen: chaas, curd, dal, sprouts, onion, oats, bananas. What each does, what the science supports, and what it does not.
Nutrition & health
I keep hearing about fibermaxxing — how much fibre should I eat and what Indian foods have it?
“Fibermaxxing” is the year’s nutrition trend — deliberately eating a lot of fibre for gut, blood sugar and fullness. The Indian plate was doing this before it had a name. Here is what 30 g a day looks like in dal, sabzi, fruit and roti, and how to get there without a week of bloating.
Nutrition & health
I am vegetarian and everyone says I am not getting enough protein — how much do I need and how do I get it from Gujarati food?
A Gujarati thali is famous for being short on protein. It does not have to be. Here is what a working adult actually needs, what each thing on the plate contributes, and a day that reaches 60 g with dal, curd, paneer, chana and peanuts — nothing from a tub.
Smart snacking
I don’t know whether to buy the 500 g or the 1 kg pack.
We sell in 500 g and 1 kg, and people ask which one they need. The answer depends on one number nobody has thought about: how big your evening bowl actually is.
Everyday eating
I don’t know what I’m going to eat tomorrow, so I decide at the last minute and decide badly.
Most people do not have a food problem. They have a 12.40 pm decision problem, repeated five times a week. Move the decision and the problem mostly goes away.
Smart snacking
Healthy snacks still contain ingredients I don’t understand.
You do not need to understand every word on a packet. Four checks, in order, tell you most of what the packet is trying not to say.
Smart snacking
I eat well all day and then snack badly at 5 pm.
Most people eat well until about half past four. What happens next is a planning problem dressed up as a willpower problem — and it has a boring, effective fix.
Nutrition & health
The numbers on a nutrition panel don’t tell me how the meal will actually feel.
Three numbers explain most of how a meal will make you feel. Here is what each one actually measures, what a normal day looks like, and why the calorie is the least useful of the three.
Ordering well
I order the healthy option and somehow it still isn’t.
Nine ways an order that looked healthy stops being healthy — most of them happening before the food is even made.
Nutrition & health
My salad looks healthy but I have no idea whether it is actually a meal.
A bowl of leaves is not a meal. Five components turn a salad into lunch that holds you until evening — and one of them is the part everyone gets wrong.
Nutrition & health
I know vegetables are good for me, but I don’t know what a daily bowl actually does.
A bowl of vegetables a day is one of the few eating habits almost every dietary guideline agrees on. Here is what it actually does for you — and what it does not.