The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : A healthy combination of nutrition and innovation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 07, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

A healthy combination of nutrition and innovation

"Eat well and spend well on food, as a healthy body is the key to a healthy mind"

Fuelled by her passion for dietetics, she quit pursuing her B.Sc Mathematics and took up home science at the SIET College. Since starting her career as a demonstrator with the Queen Mary's College, she has gone up the ladder — to the rank of a Reader in the Department of Home Science at the College. Dr. Chandra Venkatasubramanian, talks to Swahilya on her first love - good food!

Her description of preparing nutritious food, arranging them tastefully on a platter and serving them itself sounds appetising. "Dietetics is my passion," she says, her face lighting up.

She firmly believes that the amount of money spent on food is not in vain. With a son in Alaska and a daughter in London, Dr. Chandra emphasises that nutritious food is the most important gift a mother can give her family. It is also her motto in life to eat well and spend well on food, as a healthy body is the key to a healthy mind.

On finishing her Master's degree, she worked as the Chief Dietician in M.V. Diabetes Hospital in Royapuram. After 29 years, she now teaches food science, advanced dietetics, community and therapeutic nutrition and food service management. She has also served with the dietary department in Hospitals and the hotel industry.

Her academic record includes 16 papers in national journals, holding the post of the past president of the Indian Dietetic Association, a life member of the Nutrition Society of India, the Indian Vegetarian Congress, a resource person in five national UGC-sponsored seminars and conferences.

She has brought out a recipe book called `Eat' and a manual on therapeutic diets in collaboration with the Post Graduate Department of the Home Science Department in her college. She was awarded a prize for her paper on Vrikshamla (garcinia Indica) and its effect on body weight and lipid profile of morbid obese middle-aged women and on flower arrangement in hotels at the conference on `Human Science for the Generation Next.'

She has tried out several novel combinations for her family. Dal with dates or mushroom, tomato-onion masala, sprouts and vegetables with more vitamin C content and easily digestible foods are just few of her innovative recipes.

Her 87-year-old father still has all his molars intact and she attributes it to eating chappatis with dry salads, sprouts and vegetables. Her evening tiffin of idlis is usually served with a bowl of vegetable and dal.

Debunking myths about the differences in the calorific value of rice and wheat, she says the answer to the problem of weight gain is in the chewing. "Rice does not require chewing while chappitis stay a longer time in the system," she says. The nutrients are the same in rice, wheat and ragi, but they should be taken in the form of chappatis and not as porridge, she says. Fruits are best eaten raw, she says.

Her recipe to good health is to eat slowly, enjoy the food, never hurry and never think one can skip breakfast and make up during lunch. Nutritious food, coupled with exercise such as walking or running is the only way to fight stress and weight gain and not through any fad diet, she says.

The first sign of stress for anybody is falling hair, she says, critical of the idea of starving to stay slim. The after effects of starving or severe dieting are very bad. Fat is a transport agent, lubricating the body, and it is required in moderation, she says. "When you look at food, quarter of the stomach is satiated. Begin with a glass of water, attack the proteins and vegetables first and then go for the chappatis and rice," she says.

Food lays the foundation for the future generation, according to Dr. Chandra.

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