Ensuring Good Health of the Family is no Child’s Play

I am one of those proud mothers who takes health of the family a little too seriously. You will often spot me in between shopping aisles scanning ingredients and nutritional value of products. I make it a point to tell my children how much carbohydrates and proteins (or lack of them) they have consumed in each day. I never believe what a marketer says. I always read, research and make up my own mind as to what is best for my family.

I miss late night events because I ensure my children get adequate sleep and I canwake up in the morning to pack fresh tiffin and snacks for their school. Till date, I have never packed a left-over evening meal for them. Elders often argue with me to take it easy a little. Their arguments often revolve around, “We only ate xyz as children, most of the times. We had never seen a strawberry in real life. We were happy in the little that we got. Despite all this, we are healthy, even today. Why do you worry so much about the diet of your children? Don’t worry! They will be absolutely fine. Let them enjoy their childhood by eating what they want. “

I know the elders are right about their childhood. But I also know that the quality of our entire environment has deteriorated significantly from the days in which they were children to the days in which I was a child and now. Everything, right from the soil, the air, the water and even education is full of pollutants which load the mind and bodies of our children. Given the amount of adulteration impacting them on daily basis, it becomes even more important for them to eat healthy. I also believe that as parents it is for us to teach healthy habits to our children. When we teach them not to throw garbage on the road, we must also teach them to identify garbage in the food we eat and ensure that they don’t trash their body with it. We also need to teach them about how to identify healthy options in life. We need to talk to them about how brown rice is better than white rice and multi grain atta is better than pure wheat atta.

On the brighter side, there are a lot of things which are better in the world today than they were in the days of our grandparents. I remember my mother washing wheat and going to the neighbourhood grinder to grind it. We, on the other hand, can not only buy good quality Atta (some brands I trust over others like Aashirvaad atta with multigrains) but also buy it in variants of multigrain or regular. You guessed it, I always buy multigrain, the reason being that Aashirvaad comes with wheat , channa, oat, soya, maize and psyllium husk. The combination and proportion of these six grains have additional nutritive value. They are high in carbohydrates and low in fat, are good sources of protein and provide varying amounts of fibre, vitamins and minerals.

I believe it pays to be paranoid about some things in life. It pays not to make compromises on health. And of course, it pays to know that good health and good taste can go hand in hand.

#FitForTheFuture