PLANT-BASED DIETS LINKED WITH LONGEVITY! Discover the flexitarian way of eating sooner rather than later…

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PLANT-BASED DIETS LINKED WITH LONGEVITY! Discover the flexitarian way of eating sooner rather than later…

FOR some time now I have been taking an interest in one of the most promoted and favored way of eating out in the countries of the Western world today – it’s in fact becoming the diet of several film celebrities and movers and shakers or so to speak. Of course, in the search of the fountain of youth forever, there are many ingredients to acquiring the perfect body beautiful and ways of eating play a crucial role in shaping fighting fit health.
We see the plethora of diets which are touted today as good, bad or ugly but from what I’ve been reading up lately, there’re two diets which are winners all the way for the young and not so young. On top of the list of diets to turn into a lifestyle is the by now all famous Meditteranean diet which most of us have heard about, but close on its heels comes the Flexitarian diet? Both are more or less the same thing but Flexitarian diet encourages minimal eating of processed meats like bacon and steaks.
IN FACT, in India returning to our traditional diet should fit right in with much of what the Flexitarian diet says. Except that in the last hundred years we have become so fascinated by refined white bread, polished white rice and their products…meat processed or not and eggs too are consumed in gaguantan portions, think how much chicken this and that is eaten. Much of the chicken is not even pasture raised chicken meat. Most of us not even conscious of how the mass of chicken meat is raised by sad looking chickens over fed in vile, caged conditions, or for that matter how eggs are harvested with hormonal injections pumped into the unhappy birds! Little surprise then than that chicken meat consumption is linked with several health problems which manifest with obesity and much else.
But I’m exploring the very do-able Flexitarian diet here and how it is going places nowadays. It was the dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner who in her 2008 book of the same title “The Flexitarian Diet” who detailed the virtues of this diet. The Flexitarian diet primarily stresses on more vegetarian or plant-based eating – listing super protein sources of beans, lentils, peas, veggies for soluble and insoluble fiber as also fruit, nuts and seeds…yes, whole grains like brown rice, oats, quinoa, barley, millets which we know about in our own tradition – but how we have forgotten them in favor of a range of exotic white flour breads which make for big time constipation (if they also come along with zero fiber inputs).
In a Flexitarian diet one is permitted a small amount of dairy products, poultry, meat – but say only something like 9 to 28 ounces of non-vegetarian stretched over a week. Portions are so called “card deck portions” and chicken and meat no more than three ounces, less than 18 ounces stretched over a week. The idea is to favor natural forms of food, the least processed foods…plant proteins mean think the wonderland of beans, peas, lentils – black beans, kidney beans, navy beans, chickpeas, edamame, lentils yellow and red, in Goa we have several native beans like the alsane (kidney beans ivory and russet). Also for super proteins think soybeans’ soybean milk and tofu soft and hard, also tempeh although I don’t see much of it in even in our Indian urban markets …in fact, soybean products are said to be superlatively good for women, especially as they age for they offer natural estrogen value protection. In the Oriental wet markets you will get several kinds of soybean tofu and other soybean products.
As far as far as I am concerned all this sounds very good – the Flexitarian diet, mostly vegan and vegetarian, some fish or prawn-curry rice thrown once a week or so! And poached or boiled egg sounds perfectly sane tucked into an arugula lined sandwich of wholesome bread or even rolled into a jowari chappatti. Sigh. As I have observed many times it’s hard to find the millet flatbreads of India in the marketplace and one must just learn to make them at home. Funny, we can buy all kinds of disastrous for health fancy bread loaves and confections in our many bakeries and cake shops — but nobody thinks of offering the traditional flatbreads of India. Even our many self-help women’s groups can’t find the time of day to retail flatbreds for those who are constantly looking for them. Like me!
Yes, I do find that when I eat a lunch of say a jowari or ragi chappatie with a veggie dish I don’t get hungry quickly and my insulin resistance is better. Next best Flexi foods are unrefined brown rice or “ukde tandul” (unpolished rice) but that’s hard to find in eateries and even tiffin services don’t feature them. Cook at home then, best.
Needless to say when we take the easiest way out to feed ourselves in quick-fix poor snacks and meals we are asking for trouble health wise and all this is just to say check out the Flexitarian diet which has research has now given enough data of how it has a remission action on such familiar headaches as diabetes, liver disease, cardiovascular disease and colon cancer (incidence is high in Goa). Colon cancers are very often relate back to excessive meat consumption very low in fiber.

WHERE did I read it, but here it is again, “Dietary patterns have increasingly been recognized as an important modifiable determinant of health in older adults, with increasing interest in plant favored eating approaches for promoting healthy aging.” Which just means to be sure to include such things as garlic, mushrooms, all kinds of fresh veggies and fruit in your daily eating. Flexitarian and Mediterranean eating lifestyles are known to ease depression and so called “cognitive impairment.” Make that Flexitarian, Mediterranean and the MIND diets…these have demonstrated potential neuroprotective effects in ageing or elderly people.
Funny or not so funny. The depression we see in seniors is now often recognized as “neuropsychiatric disorder” and yes it is a major challenge when it comes to tackling the ageing years and care systems in place or not in place. Do we have any kind of preventive health care for our senior population which is growing in India? Of course not! So this is an appeal to live kindly – listen to the experts who say eat more plant-based foods if you seek healthier, happier longevity longevity! Hey, this is also the advice I’m giving myself these days, go that extra mile to put food into my mouth which is worth eating. Flexitarian eating is perfectly flexible and proven to lead to better heart health, weight control and lower disease risk it. Over and above all that it is good for the good earth, for think of how much fodder and water goes into raising livestock; from what one hears and sees this is not very ethical either.
Cruelty to animals is one of the reasons a lot of educated folk are now voluntarily cutting down on meat consumption or at the very least consuming it in small portions — for perfectly sound health reasons too. Being plant-friendly is being animal-sensitive too!
THIS is to add that I’m still looking for a tiffin service which is senior citizen friendly or patient friendly…and let me share that my maternal grandmother without with dentures and without them relished a pearl millet flat bread called “bajra no rotlo” made for lunch but just as good for dinner – she just crushed the aromatic with ghee flatbread into a small vessel of dairy milk, sweetened with a nugget of jaggery. Enjoyed it too for that’s all she wanted. A millet flatbread to soak into milk or buttermilk or some dal of the day. She almost touched a century when she passed away, all there, didn’t suffer too much at all.