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Mint Primer | ‘Read that label’ and 16 more food commandments
Summary
- About 56% of India’s total disease burden is due to unhealthy diets. Healthy diets coupled with physical activity can tame the surge in non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes, and prevent premature deaths.
Unhealthy food is responsible for more than half of India’s disease burden, cautions the new dietary guidelines released last week by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). Eat lots of fresh food and avoid heavily marketed, packaged and ultra processed food. Mint explores.
What are the main recommendations?
The 2024 Dietary Guidelines for Indians (DGIs) is a list of 17 do’s and dont’s from India’s premier nutrition research institute. It advises us to eat a variety of fresh foods, include quality protein in diets and avoid supplements to build muscle, take steps to prevent abdominal obesity, minimise consumption of ultra-processed food high in salt, sugar and fat, plus pay attention to labels on packaged food to make informed choices. Complementary diet for infants older than six months (in addition to breast milk) is better when home-cooked; packaged items with added sugar are best avoided, it told parents.
Why are the DGIs critical?
About 56% of India’s total disease burden is due to unhealthy diets. Healthy diets coupled with physical activity can tame the surge in non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes, and prevent premature deaths. Every tenth child is pre-diabetic while one in four is anaemic. India is also a tale of contrasts: while a fifth of adult women battle undernutrition, a quarter are obese. Highly processed food loaded with sugar and salt is more affordable and accessible than healthy alternatives. Cheap junk food is heavily marketed, influencing diets of both children and adults.
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What does an ideal diet look like?
We should source macro and micro nutrients from a minimum of eight food groups with fruits, vegetables, green leafies, roots and tubers forming half the plate. Cereals, pulses, flesh foods, eggs, nuts, oils, and dairy comprise the rest. 45% of our energy needs can come from cereals, 15% from protein, 30% from fats, and the rest from milk products and nuts.
What are people actually eating?
Cereals contribute 50-70% of daily energy needs of an Indian. Protein sources contribute only 7-9%—half of recommended levels. For a large part of the population, intake of micronutrient rich food like whole grains, fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables is low. Due to limited availability and high cost of pulses and meats, more of household budgets are spent on cheaper cereals and heavily advertised packaged food. This results in poor nutrition and disrupted metabolism which raises health risks at a young age.
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How should one treat packaged food?
Read nutrition labels carefully—claims could be false and misleading. Packaged juices often have more added sugar than real fruit. As per the food regulator, a juice with just 10% fruit is allowed to state that the product is made with real pulp or juice. Foods manufactured by extensive industrial processes and containing chemical additives—like cakes, biscuits, beverages, health drinks, jams and sauces—have no nutrition. Enriching these with vitamins and minerals does not make them healthy.
