Rohit Malik and his cart make their way down the alleys piled high with packaged food products at one of the city’s supermarkets.
He is picking up groceries on his day off for his roommates and himself.
His grocery shopping cart is the stuff a nutritionist’s nightmares are made of. Completely bypassing the section that sells fresh vegetables, it is loaded with a week’s worth of frozen parathas, ready-to-eat breakfast mixes and meals, cereal, fruit preserves, bread, eggs, frozen foods, packaged juice, instant noodles and pre-marinated products.
Rohit spends nearly 10 hours at work daily and boast of some basic cooking skills. Apart from lunch, which they eat in the office canteen, they either order in from a dhaba near their house or “cook” at home.
Dietician and nutritionist Rashmi Singh says most youngsters who do not employ someone to prepare a meal every day shop like Rohit. It makes them feel that they are eating two meals at home each day, but they are actually eating out of a box or packet.
Since these meals require only heating or adding water to cook, they hardly take any time to put together and give one the feeling of eating a home-cooked meal.
However, Rashmi warns that these are a dangerous substitute for freshly cooked meals as many of the products are marketed as healthy but may not be. In fact, some are even harmful if consumed over a long period of time due to preservatives and other ingredients present in them.
She says when most of her clients come to her for a diet plan, she asks them to keep a food diary to make them realize how little fresh food they eat in a day.
Priya Apte, who shifted to the city a year back, says at first she would pick up packets of instant food as emergency supplies in case she was too tired to cook.
However, she soon realized that fresh vegetables would be lying unused and the emergency food became her main meal after a hard day’s work.
Priya says most people in her office who live alone do not find the time or the energy to cook. Even those who do not mind employing someone to cook for them can’t do so as they leave home by 8.30 a.m. and most cooks only come in after that. So it is much easier to defrost frozen food or eat a sandwich for dinner.
Another popular option, especially among students, is to get dabba delivered home so they do not have to order in on a regular basis.
Anita Jain, who started delivering home-cooked dabbas to a number of homes in her society in Dwarka, says the toughest part about starting her business was getting calls in the evening saying “aunty please don’t send the dabba today, I wont be home for dinner”.
This would result in her not being able to plan how many people she was cooking for and lead to wastage even if she charged for the meal cancelled at the last minute. Therefore, she only takes on clients who are regular with their pickups.
Amit, one of those who opted for Anita’s home-cooked dabba service, said very often it was tough for him to be back home on time to pick up the food as plans would often get made for dinner after work. Sometimes, Amit would get late and eat something before taking the metro from Central Delhi as he would be starving.
With options galore at supermarkets offering cheat codes to cook up a meal, Delhi’s youth that works hard and lives away from home seems to be stocking up on such options.
