The Hindu : Metro Plus Chennai : Dieting? It's easy now

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 17, 2006

Metro Plus Chennai

Published on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays

Metro Plus Bangalore Chennai Coimbatore Delhi Hyderabad Kochi

Dieting? It's easy now

If you thought health foods tasted like sawdust grimly held together with glue, think again. SHONALI MUTHALALY checks out some tasty options in the burgeoning market

A DIETER'S WISH LIST There's so much on offer

It's a working day, and mid-afternoon, yet I'm cheerfully clutching a brimming shot glass. "No sipping business here," trills my drinking partner, "You have to finish it in one gulp." So, like seasoned guzzlers, we down our gooseberry shots and then sit back preparing to glow gorgeously.

Prana Cafe's single shots of gooseberry, ginger and bitter gourd for vitamin C, stress relief and blood sugar reduction respectively are made using a juice extractor to ensure potency, which means it's a lot more appealing swishing about your insides than your mouth.

Once upon a time, a restaurant like this would have appealed to maybe six retired health nuts. Today, Prasannavadhani is so sure of success that she's tied up with HPCL, and her plans involve Prana sprouting like the gremlins, beginning with her outlet at the Teynampet petrol bunk and moving on to Vadapalani, Egmore, Kodambakkam, Saidapet and Meenambakkam. And at prices like Rs.12 per shot, she's clearly not targeting just the Mercedes market.

Health conscious

"We'll make our profits from volume," she states, as I gingerly sip their next concoction, a surprisingly refreshing beetroot and carrot juice called `Glow Skin.' "The working middle class is now health conscious. They have to be. Look at their lifestyles."

Health food is clearly not the domain of the Evian toting rich or herb-growing hippies anymore. Wander through Nuts and Spices, which just opened its sixth outlet at Ashok Nagar, and you'll notice that it is occupying an increasing amount of room on their shelves. They have half a dozen sugar substitutes, low calorie drinks, sugar free gum and exotic candy like

Blueberry cream sweets. How difficult can a diet be, after all, if you're allowed Danish diet cookies, soya biscuits and low-fat desserts like Peach and Passion fruit dessert cups?

"Business is roaring," grins Dinesh Kumar, the owner, as he busily pounds on his cash register while customers hand over their health food laden baskets.

So, not surprisingly, even the big department stores are getting into the act. The Spencer's stores, for instance, stock a mind-boggling array of health cereals, amongst other thing. You can't just pick up oats anymore; you need to specify whether you need whole grain oats, oat clusters with wheat bran and wheat germ, white oats or oat bran. Or a `sugar free crunchy oats cluster with wheat bran, oat bran, wheat germ and apple,' sold by one company. And that's quite a mouthful, before you even open the packet.

The market has finally realised that dieters are people too. Which means less food that tastes like sawdust grimly held together with glue, and more bran-enhanced blueberry muffins. Herbalife, for instance, which has an annual retail sales in the region of $ 1.6 billion has been in India for six years, and now operates out of six cities through 26,000 distributors, usually waving flamboyant `Lose Weight Now. Ask Me How' signs. Their products, which include a `Nutritional Shake Mix' to replace meals, actually come in flavours such as Cookies `n' Cream and Dutch Chocolate.

Noveau Dietetique (P) Ltd. even unveiled a diet chocolate recently. This low fat chocolate — "better lite than never" — is supposed to magnify the goodness of cocoa by eliminating sugar and milk. Developed with help from dietician and nutritionist Dr. Varsha, it claims to heart-friendly. Talking about "that one and a half inches of tongue that dictates all the other inches on the body," Dr. Varsha says no one will eat diet food unless it's tasty.

That's true. At Mocha, the realm of sinful desserts, the only concession to dieters is three low calorie items in a sea of chocolate fudge, brownies and dreadfully delectable shakes.

Growing market

However, it is a start. Evidently, mainstream restaurants are slowly waking up to the small, but growing, health market. Even Icarus, a diminutive Punjabi dhabha, has introduced low fat food and serves impressive barbequed fish, chicken and grilled paneer along with a ginseng fat-reducing soup. (It's also introduced energetic bhangra classes so, as the dholak-pounding proprietor Chaddha states, "People who want to lose weight can eat and then dance off the calories.")

And if you're pubbing, try Geoffrey's low fat cocktails and mocktails, which have an average of 100 calories and taste as good as their rich counterparts, without making your jeans feel like Chinese torture at the waistline.

However, all this doesn't mean that everyone's started making smart choices at the dining table yet even if they do snack on an occasional

soya kakra. AIWO actually serves up some really interesting meals, working with colours and textures to make their healthy food interesting, whether it's by creating a rich creamy zucchini and broccoli soup or serving luscious kebabs with a smudge of bright chutney. They even have a low-fat dessert section featuring the likes of vanilla flavoured soy ice cream. But their diners, though loyal, are a small community.

"It's too early. We don't have that kind of crowd in the city yet," says Praveen Anand, Executive Chef, The Park Sheraton, discussing how their health food breakfast with `wheat grass juice, sprouts, low fat yoghurt and fresh fruit by the dozen' doesn't really attract as much attention as the buttery croissants and sausages. "But maybe we will once the present IT guys hit 40, considering their lifestyles."

Laughing about the drama diners dish out, he says, "It's during dessert that all the nakras start, but they want to eat everything. Indians have a terrible sweet tooth... Then, they'll all say `tomorrow, I have to walk two kilometres extra'."

Clearly, for every wheat grass juice addict, there are a dozen people ploughing into chocolate sundaes muttering the ever-popular mantra

"Eat and be merry. For tomorrow you may diet."

* * *

Skinny drinks for summer

The Blueberry Brainfreezer at Mocha

A blend of forest blueberries, cherries, banana, low fat

yoghurt and low calorie vanilla ice cream.

The Chocolate Sugar-free Delite

A chilled concoction made with crushed ice and rich chocolate.

Orange juice at AIWO

Made with specially imported machines, every glass contains pure juice from about four oranges.

Skin Queen at Prana