In the age of celebrity dieticians, where one is never sure whether the dietician herself is a celebrity or she caters only to celebrities, Rujuta Diwekar is approachable, both in person, in the way she writes, and in what she suggests we eat. Much like Michael Pollan, who boils it down to: ‘Eat food, not too much, mostly plants’, making it both commonsensical and easy, Rujuta’s approach to food is simple: eat what your grandmother cooked. Unfortunately in both cases, we’ve lost touch with what food is (chips?), how paati cooked (cake?), and how much we should eat.
Forgotten art
We’re so disconnected from our bodies that other than knowing that a laddoo is a traditional food that paati probably made, we simply don’t know when she made it (every day or only on festivals?), how often to eat it (once a day?), and how much of it to eat (until full?). So intuitive eating is simply too much to expect from us — a generation so distant from nature and all that’s natural, that a packaged ragi snack filled with vanilla seems healthy. The obesogenic environment has taken over our lives and our plates.
Thankfully, Rujuta spells it out in her book, Notes for Healthy Kids (Westland Publications). First though, she takes us through ‘The Bigger Picture’, the first segment of the book that explains the context of food. She frequently references the EU’s I.Family project, an eating-centric study to help European citizens understand how nutrition-related diseases (obesity and other non-communicable diseases) were impacting health in the long-term.
Simple messages
Rujuta is fairly cut and dry in her message to parents: we are supposed to ‘lead and guide’, which pretty much means we have to be role models, and also uncomplicate. So it’s down to cooking fresh food and enjoying a family meal together, which will see the child through life. This doesn’t make it solely the parents’ responsibility, because you may lead well, but if your child steps out and only finds chips when he’s hungry, or goes to the market and only finds quinoa, it’s really about government intervention, rather than individual choices. Also, she talks of exercise, one of the basic rights of childhood, in what a generation ago we called play.
Her message, put down in ‘four food fundas’ and ‘three misconceptions’ for parents (summarised nicely with illustrations), are easy to follow and understand, and simplify complex concepts like nutritionism and the nutrition transition, for lay readers. It also addresses daily worries at home (food fights, TV dinners, for instance) and gives out little tips and reassurances (such as, kids resist dal for a reason; all you need to do is soak it a while before cooking; dal is not the be-all of veg protein). There’s also a chapter for kids to read, if your child is so inclined.
Practically speaking
The second part of the book gives an age-wise break-up of what to put on your child’s plate, though it would have been enriched had there been sections for ‘special cases’ — like sportspeople and those on the spectrum. It’s slightly skewed to a vegetarian audience, never acknowledging that there are communities in India that do eat fish or meat daily, and it is Hindi-ised, but if you’re a young parent, the meal plans, notes on what to offer on special occasions, even the odd recipe, are helpful.
Mostly though, it’s a good book to help us remember that food goes beyond ‘fuelling’ your body with carbs-fat-proteins. It is about the simple acknowledgement and gratefulness of every hand that goes into getting that one roti on your plate. Then, we’ll return to eating intuitively.
