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JUNK FOODS ARE TASTY But they’re not healthy

The study “Understanding snacking amongst women and kids” , surveyed 1,000 respondents — 200 each from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata. It covered homemakers, working women (mothers) in the age group of 28-40, and children in the age group 5-12, belonging to middle and upper income households. It covered their daily intake of various foods at regular intervals and found that it was the pre-dinner period between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. when people binge the most.

A wide variety of unhealthy snacks such as pakodas, noodles, burger/pizza and chaat are consumed. All this in addition to biscuits, namkeens and chips or potato wafers.

In the specific pre-dinner moment nearly 81 per cent of consumers in Delhi confess to consuming snacks. Second is Kolkata with an incidence of 73 per cent. Bangalore and Chennai have the least incidence of consuming pre-dinner snacks.

What do leading nutritionists and dieticians have to say about the study?

Dr. Bhuvaneshwari Shankar of Apollo Hospitals, Chennai said, “The survey results are reflective of the lifestyle in most urban areas in India today. There is a clearly a long gap between tea-time and dinner because of long working hours and longer commutes home. This leads to people resorting to unhealthy quick snacks which not only kill their appetite for dinner, but also contribute the most to weight gain and other health related problems such as high cholesterol.

“All those interested in eating and living healthy, and especially mothers who are the nurturers of tomorrow’s generation have the responsibility to check how best to meet that nutrition gap between tea-time and dinner. This is not easy, given the plentiful availability of snacks. Working mothers have a bigger challenge. I hope the study gets people thinking and talking about finding nutritious solutions.”

Sheela Krishnaswamy, Managing Partner and Founder, NICHE, Bangalore says, “A long gap between meals is not advised as this can lead to hyperacidity. When one is hungry between two major meals, the tendency to eat unhealthy food is high. Continuous intake of fried food, high fat foods and high sugar foods will lead to health problems in the long run. Therefore, it is important to be conscious of what one eats to maximise the nutrition for the body. I hope the survey results will prompt people to opt for healthy snacks such as fruits, soups, juices, sprouts, nuts and salads between meals.”

Dr. Karuna from Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi adds, “Pre-dinner snacking is the result of our fast paced lifestyles. However, if we make small changes to our eating habits and include easy-to-prepare healthy snacks such as fruit chaats, healthy soups, milk shakes with different fruits, kathi rolls with vegetable, paneer and other stuffing and healthy “bhel” in the evening snack, it can go a long way towards developing a healthy eating pattern.

Niti Desai, a leading nutritionist from Mumbai, said, “Evening is the most vulnerable time as a lot of people are famished by 6 p.m. It is a must - but needs to be a healthy option - otherwise it can lead to excess weight gain, acidity and tends to spoil the dinner. Few are aware of the wrong choices for the mid evening snack. They tend to go for namkeen/biscuits/fried snacks. Office goers usually do not have healthy options available in the office setting and settle for vada-pau or sev-puri or when reaching home will just eat whatever is easily available. Mothers today think that they can provide nutrition to their children by adding vegetables in instant noodles. What they don’t realise is that noodles are full of empty calories from refined flour and high in bad fat, which add no nutritional value.

In their eagerness to ensure that their children do not go hungry and eat something and also due to lack of time (especially working mothers) end up giving their children quick snacks which add no nutritional value.”

Dr. Reshmi Rai Choudhary of Aurobindo Hospital, Kolkata says, “More and more young people these days have high cholesterol as they consume fast food laden with trans fats and saturated fats. Also the consumption of vegetables and fruits has come down and since there is very little fibre in the diet, the cholesterol stays in the blood without being eliminated. The gap between tea-time and dinner time can be bridged with healthy snack options such as salads with a low calorie dip, fruits with skin, whole grains as in sprouts, whole wheat bread, high fibre, low sugar biscuits and soups with a lot of veggies thrown in. They are good ready-to-eat snacks which will provide the necessary fibre. I hope the survey findings prompt people to change their eating habits for the better”.

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