The evolved and researched Indian diet is not about rejecting tradition. It is about editing tradition, like a ruthless newspaper editor who removes adjectives, adverbs, carbs and unnecessary gravies
Self-awareness is a dangerous thing. It begins with much seriousness much before words such as ‘tighter waistband’, ‘borderline’, or ‘watch’, and ‘reduce’ come into your life. Doctors and nutritionists have nothing to do with them. Neighbours and friends cannot answer banal questions such as why did your doctor put you on this diet? Well, the answer is “the doctor had nothing to do with this but it was just me.” With existential clarity you start questioning not just your food, but your ancestry, your upbringing, and why exactly every festival requires deep-frying maida and more versions of maida when it could be leafy stuff or just protein. This is the story of my self-imposed dietary regime: conceived by a Bong, raised in North India, educated by happiness of the gut and the body, and perfected by research, observation, and the slow realisation that our problem is not diet — it is enthusiasm.
The discovery of the Indian diet (With a capital I)
Let me be clear. I am not advocating a North Indian diet. Nor a Bong diet. Nor Odia, Maharashtrian, Kannada, Andhra, or any other diet that comes with a regional anthem and emotional blackmail. I advocate an Indian diet—a diet curated by self-awareness, curiosity, and the courage to stop eating midway through something addictive and carbohydrate heavy. The Indian diet is not about rejecting tradition. It is about editing tradition, like a ruthless newspaper editor who removes adjectives, adverbs, and unnecessary gravies. Our ancestors were not obese. They were underfed, overworked, and highly enthusiastic of dessert carved from natural sweeteners and not industrially refined sugar. Somewhere along the way—after Mughal, Armenian, Afghan, Turkish, Jewish, American, Italian, Moorish, British, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai influences—we turned food into a cultural symposium where every cuisine brought carbs, sugar, vegetable oil, and emotional manipulation. And we accepted everything. Because we are Indianly joint-family driven polite.
The carbohydrate conspiracy
The greatest lie ever sold to Indians is that more carbohydrates equal more prosperity. Every region expresses success through starch. “Beta, roti aur lo.” “Arre rice toh liya hi nahin.” “Ek aur bhatura bina shame ke.” “aruktu bhaat debo?” “oru plattu koodi chot kazhikku” “Iṉṉoru taṭṭu cātam cāppiṭuṅkaḷ” Carbohydrates are evil if you are not a hard working farmer or factory labour. Carbohydrates are slow death with melting bones and flabby muscles. The Indian diet I follow is based on a simple principle: Eat the dish. Reject the vehicle. Which brings us to the commandments.
Eat the chholey, reject the bhature.
Chhole are honest. Bhature are deceptive. Chhole are protein-rich, spiced, oiled (good for you) and socially respectable. Bhaturey are balloons of refined flour (although eased with curd overnight. That’s good) that whisper sweet lies like, “One more won’t hurt.” Eat the chhole. Appreciate them. Scoop them respectfully with a spoon, like a civilised adult. But leave the bhature alone. Bhature are delicious spongy cushions for stress but they are also edible peer pressure. The overnight puffing of maida owing to the infusion of curd is one redeeming factor but it does not absolve bhaturey. If you must chew something, use onion slices. They have character.
Papaya salad without the sugar-infused sauce
Papaya is a fruit trying very hard to be a vegetable. It deserves encouragement, not sabotage. The moment you drown it in sugar-infused sauce, honey dressing, or anything that sounds like it came from a spa menu, you undo its entire personality. Eat papaya salad naked or with olive oil or with just lemon juice. Let it feel vulnerable. Let yourself feel superior. Eat more of that. And some more.
Khichu with lots of oil (yes, oil)
Somewhere, a nutritionist fainted reading this. Let them. Khichu—simple rice flour, water, spices—is one of civilisation’s gentlest inventions. But it needs delicious mustard oil. Oil is not the enemy. Quantity without context is the enemy. Oil, butter and ghee are good for you. It was corn farmers who paid physicians in the 1800s in USA who spread the lies about oil and butter being the silent killers. They are not. Khichu with oil satisfies. Khichu without oil makes you eat five more things later, including regrets.
Methi thepla without kesar jalebi and friends
Methi thepla is health pretending to be fun. Kesar jalebi is diabetes pretending to be tradition. Do not let them meet. They come from different moral universes. Eating them together is like going to yoga and then smoking outside the studio.
Moong daal sheera, not ice cream shakes
Moong daal sheera is dessert with a conscience. So are lauki halwa and sitaphal halwa. Ice cream shakes are milkshakes with a criminal record. If sweetness must enter your life, let it come slowly, warmly, and with legumes.
Halwa: vegetables yes, wheat no
Eat gajar ka halwa. Eat lauki ka halwa. Eat beetroot ka halwa. Eat sitaphal ka halwa.But do not eat aatey ka or sooji ka halwa. Those are carbohydrates cosplaying as celebration. Vegetables have fibre, dignity, and plausible deniability. Eat parwal ki mithai. Petha ki mithai. Avoid roshogollah. Eat kachagollah instead. Eat lauki ke laddoo but not malpua in syrup.
Meat balls, not spaghetti
Meat balls are protein. Spaghetti is processed nostalgia. If you want to eat meat, eat meat. Do not surround it with European carbohydrates to feel cosmopolitan. Your arteries do not appreciate internationalism.
Kadhi with only 10% rice
Kadhi is a miracle—fermented, probiotic, soothing. Rice is fine. Just not as the main character.Think of rice as garnish, not plot.
Fish curry: choose your allies carefully
Fish curry is sacred. But styles matter. Goan style (coconut milk)? Yes—fat with purpose.
Ghoti style (poppy seed paste)? Absolutely—elegant, restrained. Bangladeshi style with mustard paste? No. This is not hatred. This is boundary-setting. Mustard paste bullies the fish inflames the gut. Coconut and poppy seeds collaborate and soothe the internals.
Shukto, then shukto again with more ghoti shukto
Eat shukto. Then eat it again. Without the rice maybe. But not the bastardised Bangladeshi version with mustard paste. Shukto is about balance, bitterness, and humility—not aggression. Eat the original recipe. Remember there is only one kind of shukto. The ghoti kind. It is called shukto not doodh shukto or rabdi shukhto which the Bangladeshi immigrants of yore have come up with after introducing the bastardised version of mustard paste shukto through the back door.
Chaas boiled with jeera and jowar then cooled, not lassi
Chaas is hydration with wisdom. Lassi is dessert pretending to be beverage. One cools you. The other convinces you to sleep at 11 AM. Villagers in Haryana slow boil the chaas with nigella seeds, cumin and jowar. That is heaven after being slow cooled and drunk with lots of sarson ka saag and paneer.
Prawn saak without jaggery
Prawns are sweet enough. Greens are honest enough. Jaggery is unnecessary diplomacy.Let food speak for itself. And with prawn saak it is saak (Bangla) not saag (Hindi).
Rasam, Not sugar-laced sambhar
Rasam heals. Sambhar with jaggery confuses.One clears your sinuses. The other negotiates with them.
Methi paratha, not aloo paratha (sorry)
This hurts. I know. But aloo paratha is carbohydrates wrapped in carbohydrates, fried in denial. Methi paratha at least brings a leaf to the argument. Try gobi paratha too. Although aloo paratha is definitely North India’s gift to our gateway to heaven.
Conclusion: Eat with awareness, not identity
This diet is not about deprivation. It is about editing excess. Eat Indian. Not regional ego. Eat flavour. Not vehicles. Eat with awareness. Not nostalgia. And above all—eat like someone who plans to live long enough to complain about food later. That is the true Indian diet.
