Perils on your plate

The centrepiece of any Indian meal is almost always either a heap of steaming rice or a stack of soft rotis. The comforting food habit, however, hides a worrisome reality: carbohydrates, which anchor most meals, may be fuelling a nationwide epidemic. A new study (bit.ly/india-diabetes-diet) published in Nature Medicine says that 62% of daily calories in the Indian diet mostly come from poor-quality carbohydrates such as white rice, milled wheat, and added sugars. Coupled with high saturated fat and low-protein intake, it creates a consumption/eating pattern that predisposes Indians to diabetes, prediabetes, and obesity. 

"Around 62% of everything an Indian eats is carbohydrates, irrespective of whether they are male or female, live in the North, South, East, West, or the Northeast. It does not matter if you live in the urban or rural [areas] — everybody eats a lot of carbohydrates," says R.M. Anjana, Managing Director at the Dr. Mohan's Diabetes Specialities Centre, Chennai, and the lead author of the paper. Diets with an over 56% carbohydrate intake are associated with a 14-30% higher risk of metabolic diseases, the study estimates.