Just .99 for Kindle edition!

I’ve been more and more interested in trying and making Indian food lately.  I make Mark Bittman’s dal and even the neighbor kids like it.  But I don’t know much about the cuisine and all of the recipes I’ve cooked actually come from old white guys (Bittman, and Andrew Weil.)

Indian food is interesting, lots of people seem to like it, and above all, it’s cheap.  We choose to eat meat that is antibiotic and hormone free, and in order to afford it we only eat meat a few times a week.  So, I’m always on the lookout for things to do with lentils.

A friend of mineintroduced me to The Healthy Indian Diet, by local MD Raj Patel. She’s helping him get the word out on his book and since she knows I write about real food- and since I’ve asked her for recommendations for where to find authentic Indian food in Houston- she passed it along for me to review.

I thought this was a cookbook, but it’s much more than that.  Instead, it’s a book about how diet affects health.

I have written this book for two reasons.  One, I want to highlight what modern science tells us about how various foods help us stay healthy and improve our well being…Two, I want to propose an alternative to the Mediterranean Diet based on the traditional cuisines of India, which includes many nutrient dense whole foods. – p.2

I see echoes of many other books here- Nourishing Traditions, Food as Medicine, and Eating Well for Optimum Health all spring to mind.  This is not surprising, since new data is pointing in a new direction for food- that low fat isn’t as healthy as previously thought, inflammation is to blame for many diseases, and that eating whole, real foods with minimal processing is to be encouraged.

In fact, the complete title of the book is The Healthy Indian Diet: How Traditional Foods of South Asia Help Prevent Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Cancer.

I found that the book had good explanations of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.  Chapter 2, Understanding Chronic Disease was quite helpful and should be required reading for anyone thinking of using diet to treat chronic ailments.  The medical processes are simplified, but not dumbed down.  Dr. Patel points out that cancer often occurs at the site of previous injury and inflammation.

He makes a topic that could easily become dense and boring into an easy read, yet still cites studies and provides charts, graphs, and references to back up his assertions.

In Part II, he compares the Mediterranean Diet, the Western or Modern Diet, and the Indian diet.  He makes special note of the powerful spices that are used in Indian cooking, such as turmeric.  I was already familiar with this- when someone close to me discovered cancer and I began researching, turmeric (containing the active compound curcumin) turned up again and again in studies showing effectiveness against breast cancer, melanoma, leukemia, and brain cancer.

I have several of the spices in my cupboard (hint: buy them in bulk, at Middle Eastern or Asian markets, or on the ethnic aisle of the grocery store.  Skip the little jars with American brand names.  You will be shocked at how cheap cardamom is if you buy it in a bag near the red lentils!)  I’m going to have to work my way up to a few of them- I’m still a little leery of asfoetida!

Dr. Patel defines the “Healthy Indian Diet”, making a distinction from the diet adopted in India during the British Raj.

I considered what foods, traditionally speaking, are common in all parts of the Indian subcontinent…

One foundation of all Indian diets is the emphasis on plant foods, another is that everyone eats dals and other legumes, and to varying extente fermented dairy products like dahi and pickles. – p. 71

What really stood out for me in this book were the practical helps.  This is a book about real food for real people.  It’s not a theoretical book and it’s not a book asking Americans to suddenly become model eaters by sheer willpower alone, and even advises against a “cold turkey” approach to dietary change.  He includes “Useful Philosophies” which include:

• Perfection is the enemy of good
• Moderation in all things
• Focus on changing your environment, not your behavior

These are things I’ve written about here, because they are my “useful philosophies” too.

Dr. Patel goes on to give a handy list of Basic Principles of the Indian Diet, which are nine things to keep in mind.  The recommendations will be familiar to any in the NT crowd- eat plant foods.  Avoid hydrogenated oils.  Use ghee or coconut oil.  Get rid of refined grains.  Eat fermented foods regularly.

Where he differs is in his recommendation to include antioxidant rich spices, and his ninth principle is “Create a daily diet that is varied and above all else, tasty”.  You find day after day of bone broth and egg yolks on his diet.

After elaborating on the principles (and quoting Michael Pollan), Dr. Patel makes careful note of what foods don’t belong in the Healthy Indian Diet.

Part III includes selected recipes, but the website Show Me The Curry is recommended as a resource.  These recipes go far beyond my current practice of putting curry powder on chickpeas, and I can’t wait to dive into all of the fabulous looking recipes.

I think this book is a great intro to a healthy real food diet in general, and to the specifics of an Indian diet in particular.  It is exactly as advertised, and it contains real world, common sense advice that is easy to remember.  You won’t need to buy expensive supplements, and he doesn’t villify and entire group of macronutrients.  You won’t need to consult charts or lists to find out what food you should today, and there is no schedule to follow.

This isn’t a comprehensive course on nutrition, and the book is slim (184 pages, plus 11 pages of endnotes and references).  It’s a great intro, however, and as a total newbie to Indian cooking I found it helpful.

You can buy The Healthy Indian Diet on Amazon. Paperback is less than $12, and the Kindle version is around $5.

Tagged as: curcumin, indian food, lentils