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Bharat Savur

Adding supplements to your diet is fine. But, it's worth cultivating a taste for salads to promote all-round health.

Do vitamin and mineral capsules really help? They do when our diet does not support our lifestyle. A few simple rules in supplement management:

Bank on B: More nutrients are needed for a fast-paced chaotic life, when one is changing jobs, or switching from day-shift to night-shift, compared to a quiet, well-paced, stable lifestyle. Tip: It's not always the obvious stresses that increase nutrient needs. Amidst a peaceful environment, if you are going through an emotional upheaval, you burn more B vitamins. So, take them.

What worked yesterday, works today: Remember when you've felt better with them in the past as a reference point for the future. For example, Vijay found taking vitamin B-complex during his fast stopped him from feeling weak and disoriented, while Lily found calcium pills helped when her leg-muscles felt cramped and achy.

Pointers from an American fitness expert, Dr R. Ballentine:

* Numbness, puffiness in the hand or ankle could mean a B6 deficiency.

* Broken capillaries could be asking for bioflavonoids.

* Mitral valve collapse often suggests a need for calcium and magnesium.

* Bleeding gums, easy bruising, slow wound-healing, tendency to respiratory infections might be a call for vitamin C.

* Pimples, pustules, a chronic recurrent sore throat could be cues for zinc.

* Anxiety, fatigue and wheezing, are signals of B1 deficiency.

* Blood sugar problems can be partly due to chromium deficiency.

* Eyes slow to adapt to darkness suggest vitamin A deficiency.

The handy multivitamin: If you are prejudiced about pills, make peace with them temporarily. Look honestly at your diet, and you will realise a gradual depletion over the years. A multivitamin capsule is handy at such times. Simultaneously, be open to healthy foods and a good diet-plan from a nutritionist. Then stop or continue supplements under expert guidance.

However, keep those vitamins handy for times of extra pressure, changing climates or frequent business trips when you may feel a tad run down or experience a sudden drop in confidence.

Remember that supplements are not long-term substitutes for a diet replete with vegetables and fruits. Yet, these well-planned, nutritious diets are notoriously short-lived. That's because they are often viewed as `clinical foods', `antiseptic' and, hence, tasteless or even distasteful. Many vegetarians themselves reject the idea of raw or steamed vegetable salads.

Before entering the world of nutritional physiology, there's that emotional matter of nutritional psychology to be dealt with. Changing eating habits is almost like leaving home and moving into alien territory. Giving up that dollop of ghee on rice or roti is giving up that sense of warm nurturing and belonging that is associated with a dinner-table bustling with family activity, jokes and shared anecdotes.

A salad was but a tablespoonful of chopped cucumber seasoned with mustard seeds deposited like a pickle-portion in one corner of the thali. The mental resonance to salads is thus extremely weak. To strengthen that resonance takes courage as also a commitment to stepping into and experiencing wholesomeness that will definitely not feel alien.

The shift of perception from `clinical' to `normal' can be achieved in two simple steps: One, make the salads tasty. Two, gradually enlarge the salad-portion in the thali till it transforms into one more dish on the menu.

Some tips to make meals more vitamin- and mineral-friendly, and cater to our taste:

* Steam rice or khichdi with plenty of vegetables such as carrots, French beans, cabbage, peas with familiar spices such as ginger, pepper, cloves and tej patta (bay leaves).

* Always add vegetables to dals. Pumpkin, radish, cucumber, cauliflower, carrots, French beans, tomatoes, onions, or pineapple taste great in even the most traditional recipes.

* Have green curries of spinach and fenugreek leaves, and green chutneys as often as your palate permits.

* Have tomato-cucumber chutney sandwiches instead of plain bread and butter.

* Add shredded cabbage and onions to the idli batter before steaming.

* Have corn or soaked moong dal with a medley of finely chopped vegetables and garnished with chaat masala, coriander leaves as a bhel-like accompaniment instead of vadas, fries and pakoras.

* Add fruits liberally to small helpings of kheers, custards, puddings, shrikhand, ice-cream, or jelly.

* While watching TV, have a large vegetable and fruit platter as a TV snack.

* Choose fresh fruit juices over the typical bottled aerated drinks as often as possible.

In practical terms, the important advantage of having vegetables and fruits over vitamin and mineral pills is that their fibre-content also rids you of constipation. And thus prevents specific ailment such as haemorrhoids, varicose veins, hernias, cellulite, flatulence, obesity, insomnia, bad breath and indigestion. Constipation also contributes to the development of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and depression.

In the ultimate analysis, adding supplements to your diet is fine. But, don't forget the necessities. It's worth cultivating a taste for salads to promote all-round health. Final tip: don't think in terms of `raw' vegetables and fruits, but `garden-fresh' salads. It's got a better resonance.

The writer is co-author of the book `Fitness for Life'.

Picture by R. Ragu

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