Kochi gets health-food conscious

KOCHI: The pace at which the life in Kochi changes day by day has its reflection on the food habits and health of the denizens who go after the food items which best suit to their fast life.Most of those residing in the city depend more on the eateries rather than homely food. IT professionals, government employees and even students prefer to go to eateries. Owing to the fast pace of life coupled with the unavailability of fresh items and varying taste, they are unable to have a complete food. So, they depend on food supplements for  making good the loss in vitamins, proteins and minerals.“The concept of nutritious food varies from person to person. It is after considering various factors like age, gender, weight, profession, blood group and genetic nature that dietary food for each individual is being fixed,” said Dr Mumtaz Khalid Ismail, consultant nutritionist with the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Kochi.Earlier, the food habit of Malayalis was to have puttu, idli or appam and tea for the breakfast. Their lunch was boiled rice and curries like sambar and moru. The food items would have pepper, cardamom, cloves, turmeric, ginger, chillies, and mustard. Now, it has changed with a lot of non-vegetarian items and continental dishes being added to the cuisine.The changing food habits lead to various diseases like diabetes and hypertension. “Cases of hypertension, diabetes and cholesterol are high,” Dr Mumthaz said. “Now, the patients would ask whether there is any food supplements available in the market for their specific cases. Oats are widely used food supplement,” she said. “Oats are high in dietary fibre and it regularise blood sugar and cholesterol. It even reduces weight. But things like sugar should be added to oats,” Mumthaz said.Many a person skip their breakfast citing that they do not have enough time to spare for the purpose. “Earlier, the offices and schools would start only at 10 am. Now, the time schedule of the offices and schools starts even from 8 am,” she said. “In such cases, we advice them to have a boiled banana, oats and a glass of milk as breakfast,” Mumthaz said. “We also advice the patients to go in for organic food as well,” she said."Many of the patients who consult us prefer eating out. When we advice them to impose some restriction on food, they would ask whether they could eat out at least once in a week,” Mumtaz said.