Splash No. 123 - On Carbs

On Carbs

I’ll let the omnivores in the audience in on a secret: vegetarians live differently. For those unfamiliar with the lifestyle, vegetarianism appears to be a bastion of healthy eating, represented by overflowing bowls of salad and rivers of beautiful smoothies topped with bee pollen. In reality, vegetarianism looks more like a 23-year-old Indian-American boy hungrily staring at the toaster waiting for his seventh slice of toast for the day. While non-vegetarian meals tend to focus on protein as the center of the meal, vegetarian meals focus on vegetables as the basis. Yet, most vegetables aren’t filling enough without some sort of accompaniment, setting the stage for carbohydrates to steal the spotlight.

Growing up, every meal needed some carbs to keep me full. Paneer or saag needed roti, daal needed rice, eggs needed toast. To remove the carb was to remove the foundation of the meal. And for all I knew, I was eating as healthy as I possibly could (other than the Taco Bell addiction and powerful sweet tooth). I even remember my pediatrician Dr. Desai telling me that eating roti was key to growing up big and strong!

So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that, no, a family of four shouldn’t go through a loaf of bread in three days. Apparently, calories from carbs aren’t supposed to be 90% of your consumption in a day. I’d grown up seeing the Food Pyramid, but I always dismissed it on the grounds that it was a triangle masquerading as a pyramid. It couldn’t possibly have any scientific validity! And based on my understanding of Georgia’s public school health curricula, I stand by that conclusion.

Yet, I couldn’t escape the facts forever. In the last few years, I’ve slowly had to start divesting from my carb compulsion. Over the course of many health kicks, I’ve started to move towards having a more balanced diet. I’ve discovered incredible things, such as “fruits” and “nuts” that serve as better snacks than the Nutella sandwiches I’d frequent in the past. And it turns out that most sabzis taste just as good or better without accompanying breads or rice! And maybe, I’ve been eating more than I needed to for years and years and years.

For the next couple of days, I plan to fast for Navratri, a festival for the Goddess Durga. Rather than abstaining from food entirely, I’m following the tradition of avoiding grains (including lentils), onions, and garlic. So, that includes nearly all the carbs I once completely subsisted on. In Ayurveda, it’s believed that reducing consumption of these foods can help to prevent diseases, which might be related to the origin of the practice. As a result, there’s an entire set of foods that are traditionally only cooked during these fasts, which I’ve never really eaten. This is the first time I’m fasting for the festival, partly because I want to experience what my mother did whenever she fasted (so Durga would bless us), partly because I seek the connection to God that austerity like fasting is meant to embody, and partly because I seek to evaluate my own relationship with food and carbs. 

As a South Asian man, I’m at an elevated risk of developing heart disease or diabetes at an early age. But, rather than having to adopt some weird Western diet created for optimal health outcomes, I’m excited to explore the foods that have existed in my culture for hundreds (maybe thousands?) of years that have sought to solve the very problem I’m facing. At some point, there was some Indian person who thought: maybe we shouldn’t be eating all of this bread all the time. And here I am, doing the same thing, with a little bit of help from history.

The fight against systemic racism continues. With each day, we move closer to a more equitable world. Reminders:
 

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Breadfully,
Nikhil