You can do many many things to strengthen your family’s diets. From growing palak in your kitchen garden like Twinkle Khanna to grinding your own home-made spices. The list can be really long. However there is ONE thing that is an easy hack and can go a really long way in strengthening the entire family’s diet, especially if you are a busy mom.
For me, 6-8am is the busiest time in my house. One kid need to get ready for school, another one for pre-school. On few days, husband and I manage to fit in a brisk 20-minute walk post dropping the kids to the bus-stop, most days he has to leave for office by 8-8.30.
There is so much packed in those 2 morning hours – brushing, bathing, dressing up 2 kids for school, packing the lunch boxes for everyone, making them sit for breakfast. Sometimes the kids wake up cranky, on days I wake up groggy. To add to it, sometimes we have rushed up completion of homework that wasn’t finished the previous night. Argh!! the list is endless. Sometimes I feel like giving in to the temptation of a glass of milk or a cereal bar for breakfast and eating out of cafeteria for lunch.
We have evaded that temptation so far and like most Indian families, we have parathas for breakfast. There is an occasional toast or cornflakes on weekends but homemade foodies our staple as they are more balanced and low on additives like sugar or preservatives. So 2 meals in the day are typically flour based like roti or parathas and one meal is rice based.
Though we have been consuming wheat and rice for ages, other whole grains are usually off-grid.I mean you could always have the makke-ki-roti in isolation, if you found the time and energy to knead, toast, chew them yourself and then convince your kids to do so! But frankly, it’s not very feasible. I don’t find a makke-ki roti or soya chilla appetizing enough; it’s unrealistic for me to think that my little kids and husband will chow down these rotis, meal after meal. Nevertheless, the role of including other whole grains in everyday diet cannot and should not be overlooked. Unfortunately, we all do. It’s the most neglected or overlooked part of our diet.
You can ofcourse try making a roti out of each of these whole grains individually every day, however, mixing them up just makes everything feasible. So I have been a loyal consumer of Aashirvaad Atta with multigrains since the time I can remember. Apart from wheat, this Atta contains soya, oats, maize, channa, husk providing wholesome nutrition. The rotis and parathas turn out fluffy and soft and I am assured that each morsel contains the goodness of all 6 grains. This Atta is better loaded with the correct proportion of protein and dietary fibre vs. a multigrain Atta I may choose to prepare myself. I’ll tell you why. When I prepare a multi-grain Atta at home using my own ingredients, the various ingredients may not mix evenly; they may not be added in the right proportion hence offloading the balance of nutrition and may also make the rotis hard.
If you look at our dietary pattern, rotis and parathas are consumed twice every-single-day. So, the softness and taste of rotis have to be non-negotiable and uniformly consistent. They are the largest contributor towards building our strength and fitness levels. Then why are we looking at the price tag when it comes to making the switch from Atta to multi-grain Atta? The money spent on one single takeaway of fast food in the month will be more than enough to cover up the additional cost of the multi-grain Atta.
Let’s rather choose to put that money in the multi-grain Atta which will take us a step closer to building a healthier and happier lifestyle.
Image Courtesy: healthline
This article was first published here
An Urban Nomadic 