We all love to change the traditional ways of making food but what we don’t expect is that we are introducing new elements in the game of cooking. Food is chemistry and what we do to it has repercussions to the end product and hence to our health. It is however a lot of fun to experiment and to explore creative foods and ideas. The problem is that traditional recipes come to us with rules and restrictions and we need to know when and why to make changes to them. Or not. Like cooking spinach with a fat and an acid to make sure the iron is absorbed in the body- something that I did on a regular basis due to tradition but this changed when I put spinach in a smoothie with a banana and yogurt. There was no fat or acid added. Spinach, a green micro-nutrient was a total loss to my system and to the process of setting up a new routine.

And consider dal or lentils.

A nutritionist I follow on instagram Sangeetha Khanna gave me some details on lentils. She posted about the lentil cheela with lots of vegetables and that got me thinking to a time when my father suffered with kidney and liver problems and the doctor suggested eating less toor dal or any dal (lentil). He was a mid-life teetotaler, so alcohol was not the reason for his liver problems. The nutritionist said this about the dal intake- “…Ayurveda has already prescribed ways to prevent the ill effects of lentils. Think about our dal ka tadka (seasoning) with asfoetida, garlic, cumin and chillies or sambar (lentil soup) that is made with tamarind and a tadka or the various fermented lentil preparations. The oxalates and purines in lentils are associated with oxalate type stones in kidney but if lentils are cooked according to Ayurveda prescribed ways and one consumes enough water, there is no need to worry.”

Thank you Sangeetha Khanna for this, and I would suggest you follow her blog and posts for more interesting information on food and nutrition guidance.

Malini Waghray is the founder, editor, immersive researcher and developer at Choosing Wellness.